When the tech bro is your actual brother
I can't stop thinking about Sam Altman's "pain sponge" of a sister. Also: the walk of shame but make it fashion—and more in my weekend roundup.
Welcome to my occasional weekend roundup of how I’m occupying my brain.
I’m thinking about…
The sartorial embrace of the “slutty, hot mess,” including on runways with models “half-dressed in sultry retro office attire, together with disheveled hair as if fresh from a corridor tryst.” Tom George writes:
There are of course the rebellious implications of it, but it’s also just thrilling to strut through the streets, the centre of attention as you defy the strictures of what is publicly acceptable; to shock audiences with fake cum in your hair… .
Hmm.
I’m watching…
Shrinking, a series on Apple TV starring Jason Segel as a grieving therapist who starts real-talking his patients. It’s delightful, most especially thanks to Jessica Williams. Now I can pretty much imagine what my own therapist would tell me if she tired of my shit, which I find kind of helpful!
I’m listening to…
The audiobook of Everyday Utopia by the feminist thinker Kristen R. Ghodsee. In the midst of the domestic chaos and isolation of the pandemic, she started looking for inspiration from earlier utopian ideas of communities “bonded by friendship, love, and a desire for mutual aid.” A big yes to that.
I’m reading…
This New York article about Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who will be fine if/when his technology wreaks havoc on the world because he has a Big Sur bunker filled with gold and guns. I can’t stop thinking about his younger sister Annie, a deep-feeling “emo-artsy” hippie type who has “always been the family’s pain sponge.”
Now she’s estranged from her brother and lives on Maui. She does sex work, hosts a podcast about “minimizing human suffering,” and “posts on Instagram Stories about mutual aid, trying to connect people who have money to share with those who need financial help.” The stark contrast between the two siblings feels deeply, deeply gendered.