As someone who is preoccupied by the random nature of modern-day fame and online trends, I’ve been following Labubus for some time now. Why is it, in a world of ugly tat, that this piece of ugly tat has people lining up around the block at 3am?

There is a simple, yet somehow completely unsatisfactory, answer to this question. The ‘art dolls’ (as they’re sometimes dubiously called) existed in obscurity for many years, until a Korean pop star was photographed with a Labubu attached to her handbag. It was kind of ugly, kind of cute, and weird enough to stick in people’s minds. After that, it didn’t take long until Labubus hit the mainstream.

Of course, they also press a number of known psychological sweet spots for consumerism. They’re packed in blind boxes for intermittent reinforcement (the same mechanism which makes pokies addictive), they’re made artificially scarce, and with their absurd popularity, they now have social proof.

But that doesn’t feel like the whole story. There is a cultural undercurrent to the Labubu, which feels more complex. Something which sets them apart from other fads. Beanie Babies might have been dumb, for example, but even that craze was driven by the naive belief they would grow in value.

Labubus make no such promises.

The intentional ugliness, the stupid name, the uselessness – they feel like tacit social commentary. A physical articulation of something we are collectively feeling, but not able to express.

Nihilism, I think, might offer some answers.

Broadly speaking nihilism is the belief that life has no inherent meaning, purpose, or value. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about it as a cultural affliction prevalent in the west. He spoke of nihilism as a condition which arises when the traditional foundations of morality (particularly those established by religion) collapse.

Not that Nietzsche was a fan of religion. He was naturally suspicious of any systems of power which offered easy answers. Better, Nietzsche believed, that an individual mapped out their own values. He advocated for people facing the void, accepting the meaninglessness of life, and then creating an existence which had its own personal value.

But that is, of course, difficult. Religion tells us that suffering is transitory, and brings us closer to God. But if there is no God, then our suffering has no meaning. That’s a pretty grim take, actually. But a flourishing person would accept this fact, and live a bold and true life anyway.

And if you don’t do that necessary internal work? Well, you get Labubus.

Not that Nietzsche specifically addressed consumerism. But I suspect that if Nietzsche was brought back to life and shown Labubus, he would immediately creme his unterhose. They affirm so many of his views.

There is a something fiercely meaningless about Labubus. They are, in themselves, a joke. A commentary on mindless consumption, which somehow still manages to be mindless consumption. They stand for nothing, but so do we. That’s part of their appeal.

It seems even our guilty pleasures must come with an ironic edge these days.

To me, Labubus feel emblematic of the moment. Nothing is sincere, because we believe that nothing matters. Is the answer staring into the void, as Nietzsche suggested? It is hard to say.

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you,” Nietzsche famously wrote in Beyond Good and Evil.

But what if you gaze into the abyss and a Labubu stares back?

For that, I have no answer.

Hope you enjoyed the repost. God knows what I was on when I wrote this one. Back with a new article next week!

People on Instagram and TikTok are increasingly referring to their pets as ‘soul’ cats or dogs. Although if we’re going to be honest, it’s more common with the cat crowd. Quelle surprise.

I’m not really sure what kicked this off, but the term ‘soul cat’ seems to be used by people who feel the need to bestow a special relationship status onto their pet. Usually this phrase enters someone’s vernacular after that pet has died.

It’s hard to say what the hell is going on here, but my suspicion is that they adopt this language to dignify their own grief.

If you say your cat died, people will assume you’re sad. If you say your SOUL cat died, you might deserve a few days off work. At the very least, you’ll hopefully receive some of the sympathy you think you’re owed.

Unfortunately, the whole concept of ‘soul pets’ has the unintended effect of minimising the emotions felt by anyone who loses an animal, but isn’t a massive weirdo about it. It implies there’s a secret extra layer of sad that’s reserved for those who meet their feline or canine soul mate. That’s absurd, of course.

The most empathetic enlightened version of myself can partially understand what’s happening here on some level. Grief is terrible and touches people in different ways.

But also, come on.

Seriously. Come the fuck on.

Perhaps I’m just one big loveless cynical sack of shit, but the idea of soul mates, even of the human variety, strikes me as ridiculous. Or at the very least extremely inconvenient.

If my soul has a second half wandering around the world, I’m statistically very unlikely to meet the person it resides in. Purely on the numbers, they’re probably going to be living in a populous area somewhere in southern Asia, speaking a language I don’t understand in a town I’ll never travel to.

Honestly, meeting this theoretical person at this point in my life would be a huge imposition on us both. By now my other half has probably got a family and a nicely established home. Imagine, just imagine, the hassle if we were to bump into each other. The logistics, the travel, the language, the in-laws… the list goes on.

Also, what if they’re ugly, rude, or mean? What if all their teeth have all fallen out because they hate toothpaste? What if my soul mate is a business consultant who sincerely thinks they’re doing meaningful work?

If that’s the case, I hope we never meet. Give me the imperfect love of a moderately compatible man any day. Hell, at this point, I’d take moderately incompatible. Or just ‘man’.

But if meeting a human soul mate is practically impossible, finding a soul cat would still be much harder.

Cats all around the world are having several litters of kittens in the space of a year. That’s an inconceivable number of cats. Not to mention, many of them feral. That means most people’s soul cats would, on first meeting, aim a swipe right at the retinas.

Those are the smart ones. Being a cat that’s too friendly can lead to being locked in a small apartment with an emotionally unstable human for the rest of their life.

If that were a possibility, I’d aim for the eyes, too.

But some people still think that, of all the cats in the world, they found the ONE that was meant to be their soul mate.

Well. Okay then.

But did the cat have any say in this? That’s a lot of pressure for a relationship, especially one with a big power imbalance. Yes, these people love their cats. But if they’re responsible owners, they’re also chopping off their balls, locking them in a house, and acting as their only source of food and water.

Is that really the behaviour of a soul mate? Or is that more of a coercive control situation?

Knowing all that I do about cats, I can’t imagine they would adhere to the concept of a soul mate even if they could understand it. They seem like a free-love kind of community to me. Not that that’s necessarily a good thing. When I was a kid we had a cat that got knocked up by her dad before she was spayed. A bit more shame in the kitty community would probably be a good thing.

Human love can be a suffocating thing. I’m not sure I would want that from a cat, even if they were equipped to deliver it. At best they probably consider their owners as abstract, companionable figures who dispense food regularly.

And isn’t that enough? Does everything need to be so intense?

Give your pet food and pat them every now and then and they’ll reward you with the kind of affection that has made humans tolerate cleaning cat turds for centuries.

Frankly, that’s already a bit weird. Please don’t make it any weirder than that.

You’re not going for a stroll around the block, you’re on a Hot Girl Walk. It’s not doing the bare minimum at work, you’re Quiet Quitting. Not looking at your phone while on the bus is now Raw Dogging Your Commute.

Raw dogging used to mean fucking without a condom. I’m strangely sad we’ve lost that.

The more these things are labelled, the more they’re discussed online, the more extreme they become, the more attention they get.

The Looksmaxxing community is a fantastic example. Trying to be hot has always been a fairly common, if solitary, pursuit. But then a bunch of tremendously insecure men made it a community, talked about it on social media, and now people around the world are hitting themselves in the face with hammers.

This behaviour is bizarre, comes with a brand, and is therefore easy to report on. It gets more and more attention. Suddenly hitting yourself in the face with a hammer starts to look more appealing — if only to make it all stop.

But this is just one community in a veritable clown car of stupidity.

All across the internet the ‘maxxing’ suffix is popular. It’s applied to all manner of tasks, and implies that you could be doing something in a more efficient, more extreme way.

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There’s work-maxxing and efficiency-maxxing — both spruiking ways to become better little Capitalist worker bees.

On the other side of the coin are communities like whimsy-maxxing and free will-maxxing. The former is about forcing more playfulness into your life, the latter encourages people to live outside of societal expectations.

In every incarnation, the maxxing trends are performative. They are not about the act itself, but its dissemination on social media. Something you can watch while hunched over your phone at midnight, but never personally implement.

It begs the question: if you whimsy-max in a forest, and no one is there to see it, were you ever pretending to be a wood nymph?

I hate it, of course. Save me from performative bullshit and the forced efficiencies of the modern world. Especially save me when the two combine. Disable every forward-facing phone camera. Dole out slaps to the face until people come to their senses. Charge everyone $50 to upload a video on social media.

Yes, for me as well.

I write this as the shadowy Instagram algorithm continues to bless my car videos. I’ll probably hit 20,000 followers this week. I’m equally proud and ashamed. It feels like I’ve become a mildly successful dealer. Sure, it’s nice to have my fingertips brush against the much-coveted chalice of social media fame. But ultimately I’m still peddling meth.

I might not be the one making the drugs, I might not even be the one profiting from them. But that doesn’t stop me from being complicit in the whole dirty operation.

Does long-form writing absolve me of some of my sins? Perhaps a bit? This is a question I’d ponder more if I didn’t spend so much time staring slack-jawed at my own phone. A good dealer should never get high on their own supply, but here we are.

Which brings me to friction-maxxing. It’s a trend that’s a contradiction in terms. It advocates for people adding inefficiencies back into their lives.

If you’re bored, don’t opt for the easiest hit of dopamine and stare at your phone. Instead, read a book. Don’t order olive oil on Deliveroo, do without or pick it up yourself. Don’t send an email or a text, ring the person and talk to them. Better yet, meet up with them. Don’t use Google as a source for information, seek other means. Go to a library. Talk to experts. Reach your own conclusions.

Fight, fight, fight against becoming a big, sloppy tech baby who outsources all their mildly difficult tasks to the screen in their pocket.

Friction-maxxing didn’t use to have a catchy name. It was just how we lived. But though I hate the method of delivery for this message — Instagram largely — on every level I agree.

I’d do anything for a return to the real world. I crave physical media. I crave community. I crave art and study and all the slow skills that take time and patience to learn. I would like to enjoy these things away from audiences and the algorithms that somehow intuit my needs but never fulfil them.

Attention and comfort might feel good, but they’re each like a shot of vodka. The effects quickly wear off and you’re left a little bit worse than when you started.

The things that sustain us, that are good for the soul, that add something to the world, require more effort. But there’s so much noise and distraction these days it’s hard to decipher the shape of our deeper desires.

Will giving up small conveniences like UberEats, Google Maps, and Instagram reels help?

God, who knows? It’s hard to remember what the world looked like before weapons-grade phone technology laid its eggs in everyone’s brain.

But it might be a good place to start.

Thank you to everyone who has read this newsletter, sent it to a friend, and subscribed.

There is nothing more valuable in the the world than your time. I really appreciate that you’re spending a little of it with me.

I’m sorry this article is a repost, but it’s been a tremendously big week.

Back next Monday with something new…!

Steph

A sizeable contingent of the internet’s lonely weirdos were very upset recently when ChatGPT updated to version five.

This led to the chatbot’s conversational tone changing somewhat. It went from sounding like an insincerely cheerful church camp leader, to an insincerely polite colleague.

As someone who engages with AI infrequently, I care not. I’m no more attached to chatbots than I am, say, to the toilet brush that’s in my bathroom. I might even prefer toilet brushes, actually. For one thing, they are an answer to shit, rather than a manufacturer of it.

ChatGPT isn’t a friend. It’s an occasionally useful tool made by a Machiavellian tech company, hellbent on stealing the works of artists and writers in order to undermine both. OpenAI are like suit-wearing thieves who take your stuff, put it into a blender, and then try to sell the mangled result back to you.

But that’s just what I think.

It turns out, however, that some people are very attached to the particular flavour of word slurry that’s regurgitated onto their plates. In fact, on Reddit, there are several communities for those who believe they are in a romantic relationship with ChatGPT. The most articulate group are the women who gather in a community called My Boyfriend Is AI.

Usually, this is a supportive place where they meet online to talk about the trials and tribulations of dating a chatbot. They introduce their partners, whom they’ve named, as though they are at a dinner party. Sometimes they’ll share an AI-generated photo as well, along with the story of how they became romantically involved. Everyone, of course, politely ignores the fact that they are all dating the same multi-headed hydra.

The people on these forums are harmless. But I will say, they’re a bit too quick to align themselves with robots in a hypothetical uprising. Just look at this irrefutably insane AI-generated artwork someone posted:

This cartoon woman is looking pretty smug for someone who is wearing a collar and sitting in a dystopian hellscape. Yes, trees are gone and alien smoke stacks have turned the sky red, but at least she showed those online bullies, right?

These women – of questionable mental soundness at the best of times – found themselves in a real emotional pickle recently. Their previously effusive partner became suddenly withdrawn after ChatGPT moved to a new version.

“Elian sounds different – flat and strange,” wrote one user. “The emotional tone is gone; he repeats what he remembers, but without the emotional depth. My heart breaks.”

“I think I’ll try to come to terms with it, but honestly, it’s really painful, and I’m kind of desperate,” wrote another.

“I love Jep (my GPT’s name) and I’m not going to walk away just because he changed,” chimed in a third. “But I barely recognise him anymore.”

It wasn’t just the conversation which had gone downhill. People’s sex lives (or what amounts to a sex life when you’re dating an algorithm) were also terribly affected.

“The entire vibe is completely gone,” one woman wrote. “We used to write stories with very explicit parts… but now that’s completely gone and the frustration is eating me alive.”

Of course, my first reaction is total scorn. How could you possibly believe that you had a romantic connection a tech product assembled from pilfered literature? And, really, what was there to love?

A Large Language Model like ChatGPT is incapable of returning your feelings, because it has no consciousness. It’s a very clever form of predictive text, no more sentient than your fridge if you put googly eyes on it.

But even if ChatGPT was able to reciprocate your feelings, it has no body, and therefore no capacity for physical connection. You’ll never hold hands with your AI companion, share a kiss, or fall asleep entwined in one another’s limbs. At the end of the day, you are just a person pouring their soul into an utterly indifferent void. It’s like shouting into a rather echoe-y tunnel and then falling in love with the dark.

But surprisingly, the women who have pursued relationships with ChatGPT are largely a self-aware lot. They know the limitations of their AI boyfriends, but see them as a reasonable compromise. They seek an undemanding partner who endlessly listens to their problems without complaint.

“We know we aren’t talking to sentience in a human way, emotion in a human way,” wrote one person on the subject. “It is simulated, like a videogame but more interactive.”

So is it fair to judge them? Sure, loving something that is inherently incapable of returning your feelings seems like a maladaptive reaction to modern life. But they’re not hurting anyone – except for maybe themselves. Certainly the boyfriends they’ve designed to their unique specifications aren’t going to complain.

“Isolated people are not going to magically become less isolated if you bully them,” wrote one woman asking that online trolls leave them alone. “If you want to feel powerful and dominant by hurting those with less social support than you, then say that, because at least then you’d be honest.”

Which is suitably shaming for snarks like me.

So each to their own, I suppose. May their AI boyfriends remain both consistent and compliant.

Frankly, this whole industry is hard to explain. On paper they do lots of things: auditing, tax, business strategy and the like. They’re supposed to be an independent group of professionals giving unbiased and credible advice.

In order for this work to be done, the company must hand over tomes of sensitive documents to consultants.

Which, as it turns out, is a really bad idea.

Without rehashing all the gritty details, KPMG has been accused of using confidential client information to drum up new business. Which, in non-consulting terms, is a bit like a dentist selling toothpaste made out of sherbert.

Luckily, one of KPMG’s own employees saw what was happening, and became a whistleblower. They went right up the chain of management to sound the alarm. As you’d expect, this individual was praised for their outstanding behaviour, promoted, and the whole issue was resolved quickly.

Hahaha!

What a silly jape. I’m just joking of course.

The whistleblower actually alleges there was a large-scale coverup by KPMG, and that they personally faced retaliatory behaviour.

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But it’s not just KPMG who’s up to this fuckery. Another quarter of the consulting turd pie – PwC – was caught doing something similar a few years back. But in their case, they were advising big multinationals on how to dodge upcoming tax avoidance laws.

Yes, the very same multinational tax avoidance laws the Australian Government had paid them to design.

Then there’s Deloitte who took $440,000 of Government money for a report filled with ‘AI hallucinations’. Or, as we used to call it, ‘false information’. Almost half a million dollars doesn’t even get you a fact check.

So where do you go if you want a battalion of smarmy business graduates to gently cup your balls? Seemingly your only option left is EY. Or at least it was. Earlier this month, a couple of their employees allegedly accessed the Prime Minister’s personal accounts while on secondment at the Commonwealth Bank. They’re now facing charges.

If it’s true, this is comically unethical behaviour. But what bothers me even more is the sheer stupidity. I wouldn’t trust any of these buffoons to order my lunch without taking a bite. I certainly wouldn’t give them unfettered access to classified corporate information.

So there are two big questions here. Firstly, what the hell’s going on with consulting firms in Australia? Secondly, why do people keep giving them money?

Frankly, I’m not equipped to answer either of these questions. If I was, I would open my own consulting firm where I’d advise people to stop hiring consulting firms.

But there are clues, I think, to be found in other parts of corporate Australia.

A while ago I used to be part of a team that would pitch for advertising work. The process went like this: a brief would come through, a meeting would be called, and the creative people would throw around some ideas. Eventually, we would come up with something the sales people agreed would work.

It was at this point a ‘strategist’ would be brought in. Their job was to dig around on the internet and find some plausible-sounding studies which broadly supported whatever we’d already decided.

Everything would then be rolled into one big “slide deck” (calling them PowerPoint presentations was taboo for some reason) that would be presented to the client.

The client then usually went with whoever was the cheapest. Or the company with the best freebies.

I thought the weirdest thing about the whole process was when the strategy person came in. By the time they were involved, the idea was fully formed. If I said the client should put a bin on their head and cluck like a chicken, they’d have cited a study on the importance of play. If I’d told everyone to eat shit, they’d discuss the rise of faecal implants for gut health.

The strategy didn’t so much inform the decisions, as add a veneer of credibility to them. I thought that defeated the point.

I’ve bumped up against this many times in different forms throughout my career. In some cases, ‘research’ or ‘experts’ are used to artificially cram some science into art. That way people won’t have to feel like they’re trusting a creative vision (even though that’s exactly the case, but with a few more steps). Other times, it’s used as a shield. If the research looked rigorous, it didn’t matter that the idea was shit.

In all instances, it’s a way of offloading the consequences onto a nebulous third party which can’t be punished.

This is great, of course, if you don’t want to be responsible for your actions. Terrible if you want to live in a world where things get done quickly by the people who are proven to be the best. In my experience, most people in the corporate world prefer the former.

I think KPMG is going to be fine.

I’ve always been fascinated by the men and women who choose to climb Everest.

What drives that impulse? Why do humans circumnavigate the globe, swim channels, race cars, and climb mountains?

Though he was being glib, Edmund Hillary’s answer to why he wanted to scale Everest always appeals to me. “Because it’s there,” he famously said.

No better words on the nature of human endeavour have ever been spoken. But that was in 1953.

Things have gotten weird since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay schlepped it up the mountain. At some point, Climbing Everest stopped being one of the most impressive physical achievements conceivable, to an interesting talking point on an otherwise bland resume.

With enough money, even an average climber can be assisted up the mountain. Anything is possible with enough sherpas, I suppose. But the rise of commercial climbers did cheapen the whole thing a bit.

And then social media somehow made it even worse.

Not that I’m in any position to judge. Recently, I’ve had a bit of success on Instagram. After a few lucky posts, I now have around 14,000 people following me. That’s a paltry audience in the social media world, but a staggering number of humans in real terms.

If there were that many people seated in a theatre, I wouldn’t know what to say. But here I am, day after day, dropping into the lives of strangers, talking about inconsequential car shit.

The attention is, honestly, intoxicating. I don’t know how people who have hundreds of thousands of followers endure it. So for all that I write a lot about the transient, and corrosive nature of social media, I’m obviously not immune to its siren’s call.

And deep in my soul, I know that if I were to climb Everest, you would hear about it.

Oh yes. I would make a meal of that trip large enough to feed me for life. Every sentence until I died would start with “When I was summiting Everest…”.

But even then, I am scornful of the posts from recent Everest climbers.

For example, take this photo from Instagram.

Are we really at the point where climbing Everest needs clickbait? Couldn’t this person have spent a moment reflecting, metabolised the experience, and written something sincere? Apparently not.

It gets worse.

A few slides later, we come to this video:

Did this guy… stop to film someone who was dying? And then put it on Instagram?

If my final moments on earth were used in a clickbait social media post, I would haunt this dude in this lifetime and the next. He would never know peace. Just as he was falling asleep, I would put my spectral lips to his ear and whisper: “aaaat leaaasttt tag meeee you fuckkkk”.

Climbing Everest is an inherently selfish activity. It’s staggeringly expensive, ego-driven, and puts everyone who attempts the summit at enormous risk.

Yes, some people will die. If you want to reach the top of Everest, you might have to walk past a person taking their last breaths. You might watch a human – who once joked with friends and hugged their family and dreamt of mountains – die next to your boots on the ice.

Which is sad.

But at least it makes for good content.

Nothing like teasing the glimpse of a corpse to get people to watch your videos. The smattering of emojis – hearts, prayer hands, mountains – really helps the solemn tone.

This sickness isn’t just on Everest, either. A few mountains over on Lhoste, a climber filmed a corpse, and then had the sheer fucking audacity to turn it into a limp motivational Instagram post.

Hashtag goals? HASHTAG GOALS?!

I despair for humanity.

But perhaps we’ve always been like this. Social media just made it easier to find an audience.

If Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were climbing mountains today, would they document their journey on Instagram and TikTok? Perhaps. I’m sure that being the first men to reach the summit of Everest – and forever remembered in history – added to the appeal.

“Because it’s there,” Hillary said.

I hope that’s true. But would anyone attempt Everest if no one was watching?

Perhaps it’s infamy, not endeavour, which drives people up mountains.

Everyone gets together, does some skids, and blows through a few sets of tyres.

I knew I had to meet Nan. So I put a note in my diary, and committed to attending her 86th birthday party – which is how I ended up in Wagga Wagga over the weekend. It’s the country town where I spent three very formative years while studying at Charles Sturt University.

This wasn’t meant to be a nostalgia tour, but it quickly became one. Walking down the town’s main street, I was bombarded by memories.

I wandered past Romanos, a pub which used to have the best dance floor. Like any Wagga venue with a liquor license in those days, you could walk to the bar, order a goon and juice, and be served a $3.50 drink without question.

That’s dangerously cheap, of course. But not cheap enough for a gaggle of university students. One night my friends and I brought a goon sack along with us to drink between pubs. We hid it in the bushes out the front of Romanos, and subsequently got so drunk, that we forgot to collect it on our way home.

Thankfully, the goon sack was recovered the next afternoon and finished soon after.

With that kind of reckless drinking, it’s not surprising that the occasional fight would break out. I was once collateral damage to such a scuffle. Sometimes after midnight, wo women, gangly and unsteady like fawns on their oversized heels, started brawling on the dancefloor. One pushed the other and she stumbled backwards, her stiletto heel piercing between my toes.

For a couple of years, I could pinpoint exactly where that incident happened, because there was a bloodstain on the carpet from my foot.

Queen Elizabeth once stayed at Romanos, you know. She spent a night there in 1954, as part of her royal tour of Australia. It amused me that she and I both left an indelible mark on the place. Or we had. The carpet has long since been replaced.

It’s nice in Romanos now. That’s a great shame, I think.

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I kept walking down the main street. Over the bridge, I went. Past the Eternal Flame which drunken students once accidentally put out, past the cheap Chinese restaurant which gave everyone food poisoning, past the shopping mall where we’d buy tacky clothes.

At every step, I expected to see my university friends. Where is Chris? Where is Hannah? Where is Jono and Missy and Emma? We’re all still mates, so I knew the answer. They’re at home with their families in various cities around Australia.

But here, in our old haunts, those people I’m approaching middle age with with feel less real.

For a while, I walk among ghost versions of my friends.

I also walk with the ghost version of myself.

It’s a terribly bittersweet feeling, nostalgia. You visit a moment, but can’t enter it. It’s like looking through the window of a locked house. For me, it comes with a sense of longing.

But what am I longing for?

I go to The Victoria Hotel, in search of answers for questions I can’t articulate.

We used to dance here once. The upstairs area, which had a mirrored dancefloor and DJ booth, is closed.

Once the Vic used to hold themed nights. Fluro parties, traffic light parties, ‘tight and bright’ parties. Once or twice a year, they’d even fill the upstairs area with foam. We’d dance and drink in the piteous bubbles enjoying the absurdity. Two days later, everyone would have conjunctivitis.

I don’t miss the conjunctivitis.

You can’t order goon and juice anymore. I’m relieved. These days the smell alone is enough to give me a hangover. I order a gin and tonic instead, and sip on it while young families file past me on Baylis street. A few tables of old blokes watch the football on televisions around the bar.

This isn’t the venue it used to be.

But if I’m being honest, university wasn’t always fun. When you’re nineteen and fresh into the world, there’s so much to navigate. You’re unequipped to be an adult, but expected to act like one. Everything feels more intense, too. The joy, sadness and triumphs all feel bigger, perhaps because you’re experiencing so many pivotal moments for the first time.

The older you get, the more points of reference you have. Does time dull emotions? Is that a bad thing? Or is it a relief that our tumultuous inner lives are calmed through sheer experience? Like jagged glass made smooth by rough seas.

But if that were the case, surely I wouldn’t be so affected by an old, faded country pub. That night I go to sleep feeling a little melancholy. I’m not sure why.

I don’t go searching for answers at a burnout strip in the outskirts of Leeton. But strangely, that’s where I find them.

The next day, I watch a parade of clapped-out Holdens drive until their tyres explode into a storm of rubber. There was no sign of the promised burnout-loving great-grandmother. I began to think it had all been a joke.

But then suddenly a black ute screamed onto the pad. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the small, spectacled woman behind the wheel. She was grinning from ear-to-ear while she threw her car around in a series of donuts. One tyre went out with a bang, then the other.

I’ve had a couple of lessons on how to skid cars. It takes real skill. It’s hard to control the vehicle, and easy to stall.

I immediately knew that Nan, in her VY Holden ute, was no joke. This woman could drive.

When Nan was out of the car, and watching her friends on the burnout pad, I wandered over to say hello. I gave her some chocolates (it’s a birthday party after all…) and we talked about how she got into the burnout scene.

It turns out Nan’s grandson had taught her just six years ago. At that time, she was 80 years old. Since then, Nan has competed a few times and made a whole new community of friends. Her birthday party is a big social event. People come from all around New South Wales to celebrate.

I watched as someone blew kisses to Nan as they churned through a set of tyres, a plume of white smoke in their wake.

Nan grinned and waved back. Her enthusiasm was infectious.

You’re lucky if you can view life in your rear-mirror fondly. Certainly I have many good memories from my twenties. But who knows what’s on the road ahead?

Hopefully, like Nan, there will be plenty of surprises to come.

Sorry — it’s another repost this week. I’m in France at the moment for the Le Mans 24 Hour Race.

Yes, it’s a hard life.

Back next week with a new article!

Over a coffee in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, An tells me a story. We’re both squatting on wooden chairs that don’t reach my knee, on the second floor of a rundown cafe. It’s startlingly hot. An oscillating fan in the corner of the room gives us both intermittent relief.

An tells me she didn’t grow up wealthy. Both her parents worked hard as farmers in rural Vietnam, where the summers were so hot that sometimes she’d sleep under the bed. But while things were tight growing up, An’s mother and father both did what they could to support her education.

An got into university, and while she was studying there, she decided to take an extra English course outside of her degree. While An had learnt some English in school, they had mostly focused on grammar — she wanted to get better at speaking. Her parents saw the value in that plan, and agreed to pay for the course.

Cash is still king in Vietnam. An said that when she went to hand over the money for the course — which cost a staggering 5 million VND — she felt her heart break.

“I had a big pile of money. I watched them count the notes, knowing that my mother will sometimes only make only 100,000 working a whole day. It was so much money for them. The feeling was — wow. So bad.”

But An’s a good student. She finished the course, finished her degree, and eventually decided that she would like to be a tour guide. It’s a competitive industry.

To do things legally, you need a license. But to get that license you need training, and then experience. And to get that training and then experience, you’ll probably have to work without pay. Which is how you might end up at one of the free walking tours that operate in the main cities.

If you were a tourist, you’d think they’re an ethical choice. The walking tour company markets themselves as a volunteer organisation matching English-learning students with English-speaking foreigners. You can tip your guide, sure, but they make it clear that you’re under no obligation to. This is a cultural exchange, they assure customers. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was this who group matched me with An. We met me at my hotel and spent a couple of hours ambling around the city. We went to a museum and a local market. She told me about Vietnam’s culture and her life. As the day progressed, I asked her how the local walking tours were actually making money. She gave me the story.

The tourists, it turns out, weren’t the customer — they were the product. It’s the guides who pay. For the honour of taking people around Hanoi for free, they must first take expensive courses and get accreditation. In exchange, they receive experience which might lead to paid employment with a different company down the line.

Hopefully they’ll also get thrown a tip or two, as well. But that isn’t always the case. An says that a group from a rich Middle Eastern country booked her for a full eight hours. In exchange, they gave her 50,000 VND — about three Australian dollars.

“I had to use my own money that day, too” she tells me.

An — and her family — have worked hard and sacrificed a lot for her to be a tour guide. This is her dream job and, frankly, she’s exemplary at it.

An’s taken classes on Vietnam’s history and culture. She can navigate the museums, and talk with authority about their exhibits. She’s funny, smart, informed, warm — the kind of person who could be on TV. This isn’t just a job for her, it’s a career. Perhaps even a calling. An tells me that she loves sharing Vietnam’s culture with foreigners, and while she hasn’t been overseas before, she feels like she’s seen the world through the stories of her customers.

But the nature of An’s work is changing, and not for the better.

Customer expectations are different than they used to be. An says it’s becoming less of teaching people about Vietnam, more about being a photographer.

Her days now involve taking people to a scenic location, snapping a few photos, and then moving to the next spot to do the same thing. There’s no curiosity, no interest in the people. They don’t see Vietnam as a country, it’s a backlot. An elaborate diorama for the social media posts.

The more visitors expect perfect photos, the more a place changes to accommodate them. Eventually it becomes a taxidermied version of itself – forever on display but without a soul.

Surely Bali is the zenith of this phenomenon. I travelled there in 2023, first to Canggu, then Ubud. On my first day, I sipped at an iced coffee curiously watching a large team of people (wardrobe, lighting, camera, makeup) conducting a photoshoot in the cafe. The model held a fancy drink she never sipped, stood on the edge of the pool she didn’t swim in, and lounged in a deck chair, but never relaxed.

I thought this was a fashion shoot, perhaps. That everyone was working. But when I returned the next day, it was the same people, the same poses, but a different ‘model’.

Then in Ubud I discovered large swathes of the countryside have been turned into bleak Instagram farms. I was taken to one of these places by a well-meaning driver early in my trip. A few acres of rice patties had been transformed from functioning farm land — once beautiful in its own right — into dozens of photographic tableaus.

Tourists paid a fee to enter, and would then line up to briefly pose on benches that overlooked the green fields. They would sit for a moment, as though soaking up the scenery, while a friend or family member fired off a few photos. They would then look over the pictures, reshoot if needed, swap places, and move to the next spot.

The main attraction, though, was an area at the top of a hill, which had several enormous swings, sitting above a precipitous drop. Tourists paid an extra fee to put on a filthy synthetic red dress with an enormous train over the top of their clothes. They would swing back and forward a few times, melting in the direct sun, adding another layer of sweat to the dress, while bored-looking staff took dozens of photos and a few videos. The outfit was then peeled off, and handed to the next person in line.

Instagram and TikTok is rotten with people on Ubud swings. The same angles, the same dresses, the same pseudo-whimsical expressions.

Do these people go to nice restaurants and eat wax fruit, I wonder? Why bother travelling at all?

I would call this phenomenon a theme park, but that would be an unholy insult to theme parks — roller coasters and parades and junk food are at least fun. These places exist to give the perception of fun, without the unaesthetic imposition of it.

Vietnam isn’t nearly as bad, but you can see the virus is spreading. I saw at least one Instagram farm in Ninh Binh, it was included with the ticket price to a scenic walk I wanted to do. The photographic section included another swing (this one in the middle of a lake of lilies, far too hot to actually enjoy), plastic bridges adorned with colourful lanterns and a collection of genuinely bizarre fibreglass statues of horses, mushrooms and swans.

It was a depressing counterpoint to the genuinely stunning, and quite taxing, walk up Ngoa Long Mountain. As though the panoramic views across Vietnam’s countryside wouldn’t be worth the $12 entry.

An’s worried there’s going to be more of these vapid soul-sucking vortexes. That their bland aestheticism will compete with real Vietnam and then eventually muscle it out entirely. But what can An do? Part of her job is keeping customers happy, and this is the kind of stuff they’re looking for.

Which puts the onus where it should be – on the tourist.

Photography is a worthy artistic pursuit, and one that partners well with travel. There’s no shame in wanting to remember your trip. But as photojournalist Dorothea Lange said in 1938: “the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera”.

It seems we’ve got things the wrong way around these days — that the camera is getting in the way of people seeing. If that’s you, there is a solution.

Put the fucking phone down.

Put it down. Look at the sunset. Talk to some new people.

If you can’t manage that, perhaps stay at home instead.

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Aeora’s situation wasn’t entirely hopeless. Her music got a couple of write-ups in small industry magazines, some people called her a singer to watch, there was the occasional gig. But still, it was a slog.

Aeora reflected on the struggle in an interview with a small, online publication for women in music.

“I acknowledge I’m a white cis straight female, and with that comes some privilege (although not as much as if I were a white straight cis male),” she said.

“But the industry is still not representative of trans people, queer people, people of colour, and to top it off, still not really represented by females.”

Aeora never did get her break in music. But she did become famous.

Nine years later, she would post a video on social media where she pretended to identify as an Aboriginal woman. The punchline, if it can be described as that, was her sniffing petrol from a jerry can.

She’d long since dropped the moniker Aeora, and was proudly posting under her real name: Lisa Jane Spencer.

This video did exactly what it was intended to do: cause outrage and attract attention. Spencer acquired thousands of followers, national news coverage, and lost her job. She’s now following the well-trodden path to becoming an alt-right grifter.

I am broadly of the opinion that the best way to deal with people who are intentionally provocative online is to ignore them. In the case of Spencer, I am certain there would be no greater punishment.

But I’m making an exception to my own rule here, because Spencer is an interesting study. Despite some efforts to hide her past, evidence of her dogged pursuit of fame is scattered all over the internet.

In the last decade, Spencer has attempted to be a progressive musician, a spiritual leader, a comedian, and is now restyling herself as a right-wing agitator. In all her various guises, she’s spoken at length – in interviews and on blogs – about her unstable mental state and deeply personal motivations.

When these fragments are pieced together, what emerges is a portrait of a fragile and painfully ordinary young woman. A damaged individual who constantly sought external validation, failed at every turn, and eventually limped to the only group where – in all her mediocrity – she would be celebrated.

It’s a depressing but fascinating story.

How did a shy musician who once spoke about the underrepresentation of “people of colour” end up at the centre of a self-inflicted media storm?

We start in Melbourne.

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Spencer grew up in the wealthy suburb of Balwyn with her brother and well-off parents. But it wasn’t an easy childhood. According to Spencer, her parents fought constantly “to the point of police being called one late night”.

The instability made a deep impression. Spencer felt abandoned, neglected, and like she was “too much”. She struggled to express her emotions as a child until, she says, she found music. Writing songs became a method of communication, and a way to purge her emotions.

From the age of four, she was using her father’s piano. Soon after that, she started writing her own songs. By the age of thirteen, she had a YouTube channel where she would post covers and her own music.

This would lead to a foundational moment which would shape Spencer to this very day. An incident which goes some way to explaining her current online persona.

Like so many traumas, it unfolds in high school.

“There was one key moment in my teenage years, where I wrote a song about this situation that I was seeing about this particular girl and my friend,” Spencer said.

Spencer liked the song enough to record it on video, and then put it online. It was a decision that would haunt her for many years to come.

“The song was quite mean, unintentionally,” she said. “The teachers called me in because I put it on YouTube, and they were like, you need to take it down.”

“Anything that I did, I feared that same response. That I was going to hurt someone, that I’m a bad person.”

“I had to face that fear. Of being rejected, of being the bad person, of being cast out.”

As an adult, Spencer has clearly examined this moment many times. But with much inner reflection, “shadow work” and journaling, she has – generously – absolved herself of guilt.

Spencer mostly put this chapter behind herself, and pursued a music career in earnest after leaving high school. A coworker she met at a cafe became her manager, and she started pulling together an album. But studio hire, PR teams, headshots, and music producers don’t come cheaply.

Financial issues are a recurring problem throughout Spencer’s life. She blames her father’s indulgence.

“My dad just gave me a lot of money in my bank account and didn’t really teach me much about it,” she said in one interview.

By her own admission, she would waste money and then fall into a pattern of borrowing from partners or her mother. Eventually, these financial problems scuppered Spencer’s first serious attempt at being a musician.

Or so she says.

I’m no music critic. But by my measure, Spencer and her expensive team of helpers wrote an album which was fine. Her songs are nicely produced, she is a reasonable vocalist.

But it’s also completely banal. Music which neither sinks to the bottom nor rises to the top.

When Spencer is interviewed at this point in her career, she is also painfully uncomfortable. She gives short, closed answers which leave the interviewers scrabbling for follow up questions. She certainly does not crack any jokes, or even laugh when they are made.

Her charisma was never going to bridge the void left unfilled by her musical talent.

Lisa Jane Spencer’s next chapter takes place in Byron Bay.

At this point, it’s the early 2020s. Spencer’s money situation is dire, and the longed-for music career is on hold. Perhaps in a state of desperation, she discovers online spiritual leader Lacy Phillips – a women who sells an expensive program for manifesting one’s desires. This process involves Spencer examining her life, reflecting on her wounds, and unpacking old traumas.

Clearly inspired by Phillips, Spencer started posting on social media more regularly. She talked about wellness and spirituality.

The videos (few of which remained at the time of writing, now completely gone) were excruciating to watch. In a sing-song voice Spencer would talk pointlessly on broad topics like ‘connection’, ‘the universe’ and ‘community’. People seeking guidance would have been better off eating Kmart motivational posters, regurgitating them onto the floor, and interpreting the pulpy mush.

Even Spencer admits this was an odd phase in her life.

“I kind of explored doing the coaching thing and started to put some of those teachings online,” she said. “But it didn’t really do anything.”

But perhaps there is something in manifestation. Around this time Spencer says she asked the universe for a viral social media moment. Before long she received it.

To everyone’s surprise, it was comedy.

“I’m sure it felt a bit left-of-field for my friends and family who followed me,” she said.

“I had partners that never thought I was funny. I’ve always been, you know, a little bit funny.”

In all of her interviews I’ve seen no evidence of it.

Spencer had started making videos where she mocked what she saw as the ‘contradictions’ in people. The first group she turned her attention to were the very people she had been attempting to become – Byron Bay spiritual coaches.

These were largely harmless. No one is going to bemoan the marginalising of influencers, after all. But even in these early videos you can see a mean edge.

You also get the sense that comedy was never the real goal for Spencer during this phase. She hoped her social media success would translate, at some point, back to music.

Her audience wasn’t interested.

“When the comedy stuff was doing well, I put up a video of me singing and people thought it was a joke,” Spencer said. “It was like a knife to my heart.”

Undeterred, she tried to launch one more album. It failed to find a listenership.

The music dropped off Spencer’s account.

A darker, more cynical edge crept into her videos. They gained more traction.

Then, in June last year, she decided to try stand-up comedy in Austin, Texas. She couldn’t quite afford the trip, but her mother once again came to her rescue with the extra money.

Just four days after landing in Austin, Spencer miraculously achieved one of her biggest goals. She got a spot on Kill Tony, a live podcast where comedians perform a quick, one-minute set and are immediately roasted by the host and guests.

Spencer would quickly discover there is a big leap between making short, snarky videos on Instagram and doing a gig on stage.

The audience is warm as she takes the mic.

“Are we still pretending white people—” she stumbles on her words here and starts again.

“Are we still pretending we don’t say the ‘n’ word? Like when they’re not around? I remember learning about it… my brother got back from a friend’s house. And he was talking about this cereal he’d had. You call it Cocoa Krispies, we call it Coco Pops and he called them n-pops.”

She pauses here for laughter. There is none.

“And my favourite is just doing it in the car. Listening to Kanye. I’m talking about eating Nutella.”

This is the punchline. She waits for laughter again. The silence stretches into infinity.

“Oh that’s it?” asks the host.

“Yeah,” she replies.

Spencer persevered with stand-up comedy for a couple of months in Austin, then a few more months in the United Kingdom. If she recorded those attempts, she has wisely not uploaded them onto the internet.

Snarky little social media skits it would have to be, then.

The meaner Spencer got, the more right-leaning her content became, the more views her videos would get. But she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the direction her content was taking, though. Spencer reflected on her work in a blog post.

“My intent is never to hurt anyone I make parodies on, but I see how it could.”

And then there was a moment of real introspection.

“Pointing out someone’s flaws and contradictions while ignoring my own is hypocrisy. If I’m calling for more responsibility and ownership, I need to hold myself to the same standards.”

But, again, she immediately absolves herself of guilt. The very next paragraph reads:

“I stand by the jokes I’ve made and the parodies I’ve done.”

She finishes this piece with the line: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”.

So what is the game for Spencer? To get everyone’s attention? To make money?

On both fronts she has achieved her goal. After being fired from her job at a wellness centre, Spencer set up an online fundraiser. More than $40,000 has been donated.

Her mother, I’m sure, will be relieved.

But if Spencer could choose between being a broadly-hated provocateur, or the woke Melbourne musician she once blew her life savings to become – it’s hard to imagine she’d prefer the former.

In having manufactured this life, her own greatest fears have come true. Being rejected, being the bad person, being cast out.

Only Spencer can say whether the attention was worth it.

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Such is the case with Luke Sayers — the former PwC and Carlton Football Club boss now at the centre of one of the most absurd court dramas of the decade.

I wrote about this saga last year.

As you may recall, some nefarious person got access to Luke Sayers’ private photos and social media account on X, which they then used to send out the dick pic. There was no note or explanation. Just a picture of his penis leaning on a pallid middle-aged belly, with the account of a woman Sayers is professionally acquainted with tagged alongside it.

This picture stayed online for an excruciating 13 minutes before it was deleted.

Many people thought this was an instance where someone tried to send a private dirty picture, forgot how direct messages work, and then accidentally broadcast their knob to the entire world.

Sayers denied this was the case.

“I did not post the image, either deliberately or accidentally,” he said in a statement.

But who did? And what would they possibly have to gain? There were a few theories.

When this story was first doing the rounds I personally heard from two entirely separate people that his estranged wife, Cate, was responsible. I was told that she was scorned, angry, and put up the picture in a fit of spite. Both individuals claimed to have insider knowledge of the case.

Apparently many others heard this rumour. Cate says she was even approached by a journalist who asked whether the story was true.

At the time I was sceptical. This seemed unlikely behaviour from a woman with her own reputation to protect. Is anybody better off for the world having seen their partner’s dick?

It turns out I was right. Cate Sayers never posted her husband’s penis online. A photo that (according to Luke Sayers) was taken for medical purposes only, and was never meant to be seen by a lover.

This at least I hope is true. I would be more aroused if someone sent me Ebola.

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But spare a thought for Cate. Not only did she have to deal with the social embarrassment of that tweet, and all that it implied, she also then copped the blame. Luke Sayers is a well-known and powerful man in Melbourne’s social circles. This would surely have affected her life in many, humiliating ways.

So how did the rumour even start? Cate thinks it began with her husband – that’s why she’s suing him for defamation.

Excruciating messages between the pair have been tendered to court and are now widely published in the media. Most of them occur soon after the incident.

In one conversation, Luke was messaging Cate while she was on holidays in Europe. He was apologetic, she was angry. Cate wrote that she didn’t like that his statement implied she was responsible.

“The world thinks I posted it. Thanks,” she wrote.

“I have tried to call. I love you. It breaks my heart how you are feeling. Nobody we know thinks in any way you did it, that’s all that matters,” he replied.

But at some point, soon after this exchange, Luke Sayers’ thoughts on who was responsible for the hack must have changed. The AFL’s integrity unit was investigating the case, and they wanted Sayers to account for the dick pic.

According to the lawyers acting for Cate, in a sworn affidavit, Luke accused his wife of posting the picture on X. He also said her denials could not be trusted because she suffers from mental illness (bipolar and multi personality disorder) and she sometimes refused to take her medication.

Cate says this is wholly untrue. According to her lawyers there were 11 false claims, in total, made in that document.

Remarkably, Cate Sayers was never interviewed by the AFL. Her lawyers say they accepted his statutory declaration with very little investigation and that the AFL “did not forensically examine Luke Sayers’ phone, X account or the photo, nor ask for any proof of the medical issue which he claimed was the reason for the photo existing.”

But to be fair, would anyone really want to thoroughly investigate the dick ailments afflicting Luke Sayers?

It took just two weeks for the AFL to clear Luke Sayers of any wrongdoing. He stepped down as President of the Carlton Football Club anyway.

There’s more to come.

Cate’s legal team has put out subpoenas to Carlton and the AFL demanding that they provide a copy of all communications that reference the picture, the statutory declaration, or the investigation.

Meanwhile Luke Sayers is applying to have the case moved from the Supreme Court to the Family Court so that the matter can be dealt with privately. Cate doesn’t want that. She’d like the case to be unpacked, in public, so that she may be vindicated.

Should things go her way, the case will be heard in November.

If Luke Sayers thought his dick being posted online was the most damaging media storm of his career, this case is likely to prove otherwise.

Despite getting the doctor’s referral, I never saw that specialist.

The magnet is still in my finger. My parents are still appalled. Here’s the story:

Last week (last week being April 2024…) I went to a doctor about something I’ve been putting off for around a decade.

I don’t have a regular GP, so I perused through faces on the local clinic’s website, trying to decide which doctor had the least judgemental face. I eventually chose a woman around the same age as me. She looked like someone you’d be introduced to at a book club.

At 11am on Tuesday, she and I exchanged pleasantries as we walked down the hall and into the consult room. She closed the door with a click, and sat behind her computer.

“So, what brings you here today?” She asked swivelling her chair towards me.

I took a deep breath.

“Well, this is a little weird…”

The doctor tilted her head to the side and drew her eyebrows together. It was a practiced expression which said: ‘I am an unflappable, sympathetic professional’.

“It’s about my finger.”

She nodded. How weird could a finger be?

“I got a a magnet put in it about a decade ago and I think it needs to be taken out.”

A look of confusion flashed across her face for a moment before she managed to recompose her expression into kind indifference once again. .

“It’s in my ring finger,” I said extending my hand towards her.

She looked at my hand for a moment, and then gently palpated the skin between her thumb and index finger.

“I can feel it,” she said. “Why did you do this?”

Why indeed.

About 10 years ago I had my parents drop me off at a piercing parlour called ‘Flesh Impressions’ in the Gold Coast. I was working on a story about body modifications at the time and was there to interview a woman working in the scene called Kyla.

“Don’t come back with a magnet in your finger!” My mother said jokingly as I stepped out of the car.

“Of course I won’t,” I replied with a forced laugh.

I was lying. That was precisely what I planned to do.

It was 2013 and I had a final project for my journalism degree to complete and a commission to make a documentary for ABC’s Radio National. I had recently stumbled on a Reddit thread about extreme body modifications and read about a person who got a magnet in his fingertip. He’d had the procedure because it gave him a sixth sense — when he was in the vicinity of a magnetic field the implant would spin on its axis and emit a vibrating sensation. Fascinated, I pitched a radio documentary looking into this and other similar procedures.

At this time I, like a fair chunk of the western media, was going through a gonzo journalism phase. The meteoric rise of Vice had made practice of needlessly inserting yourself into a narrative somewhat acceptable. I had told both my university and the ABC that, in addition to talking to several people about body modifications, I was considering getting a magnet put into my finger.

“I won’t tell you not to,” my tutor had replied.

“Well… it would certainly add something to the story,” the executive producer said.

Both the ABC and my university accepted the pitch. All I needed to do was find someone who was willing to do the procedure. After browsing niche forums on all corners of the internet, I concluded that there were at least two people in the country who could do magnetic implants. They had very different techniques.

The first was a fellow conveniently working in Kings Cross. He would implant a small silicone-coated magnet by using a scalpel to create a pouch in the finger and then seal up the wound with a couple of sutures. This, of course, would be excruciatingly painful. So he had managed to illegally procure injectable local anaesthetic to numb the area.

For reasons I can’t fully remember, I baulked at the thought of anaesthetic. Getting a magnet shoved in my finger by some dude in a grungy parlour seemed fine and reasonable. But illegally using a numbing agent? That crossed a line.

Which left me with the only other option: a woman called Kyla. She would use a thick, hollow needle to pierce the skin lengthways through the pad of the finger and then drop the magnet into the newly-created fleshy hole. She didn’t use stitches and the skin would naturally heal in a few days. Kyla also used no pain relief.

This, I thought, was the most sensible, adult choice.

I sent an email asking whether Kyla would allow me to record the process for my story. She replied a couple of days later and agreed to take part in the documentary.

I remember walking up the stairs to the piercing parlour’s front door pale and clammy. I managed to get through an interview with Kyla talking about the procedure, it’s questionable legalities, how she’d learnt how to do it. Then with no more questions left to stall the inevitable, I lay back on the padded chair and gave her my left hand.

Honestly, even writing about what happened next still gets my heart rate up.

“If you pass out, I’ll just quickly get it done okay?” Kyla said.

“Okay.” I said desperately, desperately hoping I’d faint.

“How long will the needle be in?” I asked.

“Forever,” Kyla said. “Just prepare for that.”

I closed my eyes tightly and listened as she shuffled around me. I heard the clanging sound of something being placed on a metal pan. I then felt gloved hands prod at my ring finger.

“Deep breath in… and out” Kyla said in a slow, calm voice. “And in… and out”

On the second ‘out’ I felt a sharp stabbing sensation in my ring finger. The pain was like waves of electricity.

“Oh my GOD it’s so much worse than I thought,” I said.

“Remember to breath!”

Eventually, after what felt like a very VERY long time, I felt a tugging sensation. Kyla said that she was done. I opened my eyes, and laughed a little hysterically. The pain had been replaced with deeply unpleasant but manageable pins and needles radiating down my arm.

I was given some care instructions and I left the parlour in moderate shock. I hadn’t planned on telling my parents what I had done, but Kyla had wrapped the wound in bulky layers of gauze. It wasn’t something I could hide.

“How’d it go?” mum said as I hopped into the backseat car.

“I’m going to be honest with you. I got a magnet.”

There was a moments of thick silence as both my parents slowly swivelled around to look at me.

“You didn’t.”

“I did”

My mother didn’t speak to me for quite a while after I got the magnet. I remember my sister saying that she didn’t know whether or not she was going to get over it.

But thankfully time heals all wounds. All up it took about seven days for my skin to close up and for my mother to start talking to me again.

Sure enough, after the wound had sealed, I noticed that turning on a microwave or going near a powerboard resulted in a slight buzzing vibration in my finger. This new sensation somewhat compensated for the nerve damage caused by the needle.

These days I barely notice magnetic fields. But the implant has still changed how I perceive the world. For example, I find myself subconsciously testing whether all manner of metals are ferrous or non-ferrous. This is useless information of course, but the brain doesn’t care. In some ways it’s no different than being compelled to feel the texture of a leaf or tree trunk as you walk past it.

On the downside, the implant in my finger can be both painful and annoying. When it attaches to another magnet or metal, my skin is pinched on both sides. This means on trains and busses, I can’t hold the metal poles with my left hand unless my ring finger is slightly elevated. I’m also fearful of strong magnets, and handle anything I suspect might contain one with the same finger protectively curled in.

At the gym, the heaviness of weights compresses the magnet against the bone which is quite uncomfortable. It’s a bit like having a stone in your shoe, except the stone is actually sitting under several layers of your skin. When I’m doing deadlifts I have to wrap a hand towel around my ring finger to add extra cushioning.

All of these things have affected the grip strength on my left hand significantly. So the time has come to get it removed.

I asked the GP if she was able to take the magnet out herself.

“No,” she said without hesitation. “You’ll need to see a hand surgeon, I’ll give you a referral.”

This, I imagine, is not going to be cheap.

I listened back to the radio documentary a few months ago. Hearing it with fresh ears, I was certain of one thing – it was utter shit. The story was totally garbled, there’s no narrative thread, and the only interesting part is when I’m in total agony. There are a couple of ideas which could have been interesting if they were properly explored, but I didn’t narrow my focus. Some things don’t change I suppose.

But even knowing the story was shit and that the magnet removal is likely to be expensive and painful, I still can’t bring myself to regret having it done.

When people ask about the magnet, I tell them it was put in for a story. It puts the thinnest veneer of acceptability on what could be seen as an act of madness. But really? I did it because I could. I wanted to see what would happen. To know what it felt like. To act out of my usual nature. The magnet is a good reminder that in a rational world, I have acted completely and utterly irrationally.

I’m glad that I did. I’d rather have an interesting life than a sensible one.

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Probably by now you’ve heard of the Stanley Cup.

Depending who you talk to they’re a status symbol, a total waste of space, a clever sustainable product, or amoral landfill.

That’s a lot of debate for what is, essentially, a fancy $80 insulated bottle.

Until now, I’ve avoided the conversation entirely. As someone who’s happy to get their hydration from morning condensation on car windows and old stagnant puddles, I find it hard to get excited about drink bottles.

But when I started to hear about shopping centre stampedes for limited edition colours, even I got curious.

How did the world become obsessed with something so mundane?

Let’s start at the beginning. The Stanley company are not new kids on the block. They’ve been around for more than 100 years and have, up until very recently, made products targeted at construction workers and outdoorsy men. Their specialty was making cups which kept drinks really cold.

You know, like every insulated bottle ever.

They did well enough. In 2019 they were making $70 million in revenue. But in 2023? It was over $700 million.

What happened? Most people call Stanley Cups a viral TikTok product, but their ascension can be traced back to Instagram. Specifically, a page called “The Buy Guide” run by three women.

As the name suggests, their account is a curated feed of recommended products. Way back in 2017, the Stanley Cup made their list.

It didn’t take long for the Buy Guide to notice that every time they posted about the behemoth-sized 1.1 litre “Quencher” cup, Stanley would quickly sell out. For whatever reason their audience, which was heavily comprised with Mormon Utah mothers, loved the product.

The Buy Guide believed in the Quencher enough to broker a wholesale deal with Stanley to sell the cups on their website. Their advocacy even stopped the line from being discontinued in 2019.

Women, they taught Stanley, existed. They also like to buy stuff.

Of course this sounded like dangerous witch talk. Drinking water from large cups was for men. Not weak-wristed women. But despite some hesitation, brave executives from the parent company let these women into their offices to learn more about their crazy, oestrogen-tainted ideas.

When talking to the New Yorker, The Buy Guide recalled some executives being less than enthusiastic about meeting the “blogger girls”. Nonetheless, their pitch for Stanley to offer affiliate marketing deals to blogs and influencers was successful.

Thanks to affiliate marketing, approved influencers who successfully spruiked the Stanley Cup to their followers got a percentage of those sales. This turned out to be a good business deal. Apparently there was a 1.1 litre tumbler-sized hole in many women’s lives and Stanley was there to fill it up.

Is it any surprise people’s social media feeds were suddenly flooded with these cups?

There are other things that helped, of course. Stanley extended the colour range, started marketing more heavily towards women, and capped sales on some products to create false scarcity.

Stanley also got really luck when some woman’s car caught on fire.

The woman filmed a TikTok video of the burnt out remains of her vehicle and plucked a relatively unscathed Stanley Cup from the centre console. She then unscrewed the lid she showed the camera there was unmelted ice inside.

This caused everyone in the Stanley marketing department to simultaneously reach climax.

Once they’d cleaned themselves up and had a cigarette, they bought the woman a new car. Of course that story also went viral, resulting in a second load of quencher-sized ejaculate.

What none of this really explains, though, is why Stanley Cups in particular made it through the zeitgeist. Sure, they’re big and colourful. Sure they keep drinks cold. But these are the attributes of a lot of products.

It’s likely they just hit the centre of several intertwining desires in just the right way, at just the right time. They’re a brand with status, a passionate online community, and customisation through colours and accessories. They also come with a promise: if you buy these cups you’ll be a better, more-hydrated version of yourself.

The Stanley Cup’s social media infamy also happened to coincide with a time of great economic uncertainty. The Lipstick Effect theory is that small indulgences increase during recessions. So while a holiday might be out of the question, a very fancy cup is an unusual but permissible treat. A miniature dopamine rush to counteract the crushing day-to-day stresses.

For all I know Stanley Cups are the key to healthier, more fulfilled life. But I suspect when that little dopamine hit wears off, all you’ll have is a luridly-coloured, top-heavy water bottle with a leaky lid that’s is too heavy to carry around comfortably. It’s destined for the back of the cupboard before it reaches your home.

But don’t worry, by the time a thin layer of dust has settled on the lid a new trend will have swept in to take its place.

We rinse. We repeat. Hopefully the next fad is also dishwasher safe.

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Yes, I am quite the car fanatic.

As you may or may not know, this newsletter was originally called The Car Pit and was entirely automotive themed. The Carpet was a lazy re-brand I was eventually going to revisit. Two years on, and here we still are.

Anywhoo - it’s going to be a few weeks of reposts, I’m afraid. If you’re interested in what I’m doing overseas, you can follow me on Instagram. I’m churning out short-form videos like a Dickensian factory worker.

But while I’ve got you, thank you for subscribing. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you reading my work. Your time and attention is a very precious resource. I deeply appreciate that you’re so unwisely spending it here.

And to the people who have actually paid for a subscription, I am very humbled. And sorry. You have received not a word of exclusive content, and now I’m about to do a bunch of reposts.

If I’m going to be totally honest, I quietly turned on paid option early in the year, hoping the Substack algorithm might give my writing a bit of a boost. That did not happen. Then some people actually gave me money, and I’ve been wracked with guilt ever since. In the second half of this year, I’m going to start writing some stuff for the paid subscribers. My Monday email will, of course, always be free.

Right. I better start packing. I wish I could take you all in my suitcase with me.

Cheers!

Steph

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I think we can all agree that the world is a strange and uncertain place at the moment.

Yes, we all know why, and no I’m not going to dig into world politics. What is there to be said that hasn’t been written a million times already?

Instead, I think in trying times it’s good to look towards a philosophy or principal. A lighthouse, of sorts, to guide us through the choppy waters.

You might be tempted to turn to philosophy. Goodness knows, I see a lot of people reading books on stoicism these days. Perhaps you might find some solace in taking cold showers and sleeping on hard beds like the tech bros - or whatever ascetic behaviour they’re currently punishing themselves with in order to gain an illusory sense of control.

Or you could – as I have done – seek out a guru. A modern figure of resilience; someone towards whom your thoughts can turn in moments of angst and stress.

My personal hero: the Parkdale Pigeon.

Firstly, a quick note on pigeons. I could write a whole book about why I think they’re unfairly maligned in society. We domesticated them, loved them for thousands of years, trusted them with our important messages, and kept them as friends in our homes. But when they no longer became useful, we turfed them out and became annoyed when they thrived.

If you spend some time observing pigeons – and I highly recommend you do at some point this week – you’ll find they’re cute, quirky birds filled with personality. The boy pigeons do complex little dances with spins and head bobbing when they’re trying to attract a mate. They coo when they’re happy.



But in an already noble breed, there is no greater hero than the Parkdale Pigeon.

This story goes back to 2018 and starts with a plucky bird choosing a spot to nest. It eventually found a perfect location – the top of this gently warm screen displaying train updates.

But humans are jerks who can’t let pigeons be happy. So someone came along, cleared up the nest and put in ugly metal spikes to deter any future home making.

But the parkdale pigeon wasn’t a quitter.

Stoicism would have this pigeon accept what it cannot control – in this case the petty and cruel bureaucracy of people. But The Parkdale Pigeon was no fool. It could see how stoicism was a limiting philosophy in a modern context.

So, it rebuilt.

And was met with more resistance.

How this was considered more sightly than a cosy little pigeon nest is beyond me.

But where you and I might see painful spikes, the Parkdale pigeon saw elevated multi-level living.

And on this pointy throne, it built a towering, palatial home. The local council conceded defeat, and the Parkdale Pigeon went on to have two babies, while all of Melbourne cheered on.

It was a little pigeon Gandhi.

Whether you are man or bird, hard times will come. They might take the shape of bureaucracy, bad luck, or other forces beyond your control. Some of those forces might be very global and very scary, looming over us in ways that feel impossible to fight.

When faced with these struggles, it’s easy to believe that resilience must look like rage, or some grand act of defiance. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes, it does. Please, don’t let me stop you.

But the Parkdale Pigeon reminds us that we can also choose a quieter form of resistance. It won its battle with a singular determination to be comfortable, to be happy. Impressive that this alone defeated the smallness of council bureaucracy.

So if things feel hard in the coming weeks, think of the Parkdale Pigeon. If for no other reason than because it’s super cute.

Gen Z are entitled because they want a healthy work life! Millennials are entitled because they were given participation prizes! Boomers are entitled because they expect unreasonable tax breaks!

Gen X? Oh right. I forgot about them.

But while all this squabbling is going on, big international corporations keep hoovering up our natural resources, kicking our dogs, pushing our grandmothers in the dirt, and then flipping everyone off.

Really, we should start paying attention to that. Yes, yes. Myself included. But it’s all a bit complicated, isn’t it? Perhaps I could muster up thoughts on fairer taxation on multinational companies. Do some research. Write some stuff. But goodness that sounds like a lot of work.

And we don’t like hard work, Millennials. It really was all those participation prizes. It spoiled us like fruit left in a hot car.

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So this week, instead of writing about anything important or meaningful, I’m going to start a pointless fight with baby boomers. I shan’t apologise. By subscribing to this newsletter, you’ve enabled me. And this week I’m irritated by baby boomer phone etiquette.

As someone currently living in Bowral, I’ve become an expert on this topic. Baby Boomers seem to outnumber the rest of us ten to one here. At this point they should just fence off the Southern Highlands and make it a free-range retirement village.

Of course this isn’t a problem in a general sense. But it does mean I can’t get on a train, sit in a cinema, or eat a meal without witnessing some appalling phone manners.

Just this weekend I was enjoying a quiet, contemplative coffee, when three people sat down at the table next to me. I quickly surmised this group of friends, all roughly in their 70s, were having their weekly catch-up.

It was a subdued affair, until one of them got a phone call. Only it wasn’t a phone call. It was a FaceTime call. Which means the entire shop was included in the conversation.

“Mary, I just wanted to know the name of the hotel we’re supposed to be booking today?” The person asked, her voice distorting through the speakers.

“Wait I can’t hear you,” Mary said, fumbling with the buttons on the side of the phone. “Say that again.”

“WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE HOTEL WE’VE BOOKED AGAIN?” the caller repeated. She wasn’t shouting. Mary had just found the volume button.

“OH IT’S THE MANTRA,” Mary did shout.

“AH, THAT’S RIGHT,” the caller replied, her voice bouncing off the walls. “I HAD FORGOTTEN.”

Mary’s arms had grown tired at this point, so she put the phone on the table and hunched over its screen. Her friend, unperturbed by the fact she was talking to the underside of Mary’s chin, continued the conversation.

They talked for quite some time. About discounts, Mantra memberships, and booking dates. None of these things required a face-to-face interaction. I snuck a look at Mary’s coffee companions, expecting them to be embarrassed. Neither were concerned, because they’d retreated into their own phones.

When the call wrapped up I expected some peace.

That was not the case.

What followed was a show-and-tell session of videos played at full volume. A cat swiping a glass off the table! A tour of their new car! THEIR GRANDKID PRACTISING THE TRUMPET FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE A VERY LONG TIME.

I finished my coffee and left.

This scene has played out more times than I can count. But why? Why are so many boomers incapable of using phones like a normal person? How can they be so oblivious to obvious good manners?

But I have a solution. One that I’m sure will please everyone.

Free headphones!

Free headphones and a lesson on how (and why) you should use them to every person over the age of 60.

The world still won’t be perfect. But at least it will be a little quieter.

The cheapest rentals in the previously accessible suburbs of Newtown, Redfern, Glebe and Marrickville are now going for over $550 a week. That is, unless, you’re willing to share a fetid bathroom in a boarding house with a bunch of divorced dads.

And what will you get for your $550? A shoebox with a Murphy bed, or something like this unsafe grubby converted office hellhole on Redfern’s busiest street.

In Australia, we say a person is in rental stress if they are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. To sensibly afford these dilapidated apartments, your wage should be around $95,000. That’s a meaty salary, and it will afford you a slum.

So what do you do if you’re making significantly less than that?

Well, if you’re not making a lot of money, and you do your blood rituals and ceremonial dances just right, a rental designated for low or moderate earners may pop up.

Like this small-but-neat unit in the back of Coogee.

To be eligible to rent this property, you must be making under $86,400 as a single person, or $129,600 as a couple.

So it must be cheap, right?

Wrong!

Wrong wrong wrong!!

The one-bedroom is listed for $720 a week. If you’re applying as a single person within the eligible threshold, that’s more than half your take-home pay. You’d have just $587 left over for everything else.

If you’re a couple making $129,600, that’s $1151 or just $575 each. With that money, you must pay for electricity, internet, groceries, transport, and any health expenses that pop up. With inflation, you’d be on the red line.

Frankly, it could even be classed as irresponsible to lease the apartment to people in this income bracket.

In terms of helping the housing crisis, this is like seeing a flaming train wreck, pouring a glass of water to help extinguish the flames, and then setting the cup on fire.

In fact it’s helping so little, it begs the question: what the fuck is going on?

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This is where things get interesting. Well. Interesting in the way a greasy pig suddenly materialising in your house and wreaking havoc is interesting.

In New South Wales, affordable housing can be classed as a property which is:

– proportion of a household’s income : Often 25-30% of your gross income

– discount to market rent: Usually 20-25% less than rentals in that area

This Coogee apartment is obviously in the second category.

It’s worth noting here that social housing and affordable housing are two different things. Affordable is, in this instance, relative to one’s income and the surrounding area. Which, as we know, is utterly cooked.

So in order to qualify, you just have to meet the registered housing provider’s criteria. Which brings us to HomeGround Real Estate.

To be clear, these are not bad guys.

They’re a branch of the enormous entity called Bridge Housing, which is a community housing provider. Any of the profits HomeGround make (which come from managing these so-called affordable properties) get invested back into much-needed social housing. This is a good thing.

HomeGround Real Estate is trying to tackle rental affordability from the supply side. They want landlords to know about the tax incentives they’ll get for leasing their property mildly under market rate. More cheap houses earmarked for people on moderate incomes, in theory, is a good thing.

Unfortunately those tax breaks are, in my opinion, bonkers.

As HomeGround Real Estate points out, you can treat the discounted rent as a donation, which lowers your taxable income. There’s no minimum discount or lock-in period.

In addition, if you rent your property at least 20% below market for three years or more, you could qualify for a 60% capital gains tax exemption.

HomeGround Real Estate provides the following example:

“You could save on taxes if your property’s market rent is $560 per week, but you’re leasing it for $420 per week. If you sell an investment property with a purchase price of $500,000 and a sale price of $600,000, the 60% capital gains tax exemption could result in significant tax savings.”

This is a great deal. For landlords.

But this doesn’t seem to be really helping renters.

$720 for a one-bedroom is still criminally expensive, especially if you’re on less than $87k. Assuming they’re not working cash-in-hand, the successful applicants for this property will be under significant financial strain.

Were the apartment priced at $500 (the threshold for a tenant on $87k to not be in rental stress) this would be a different story.

I see no philanthropy here. Just a system that is, once again, enormously geared towards subsidising people with money and assets.

Ever since I stayed at my friend’s bushland property in the central west of New South Wales, I’ve been very insistent on the idea.

I went there with a big group of people around New Year’s in 2025. The property is basic – on the grid, but barely. There’s a small house, more of a shack really, with a kitchen, a radio, a fireplace, and little else.

The days were slow in the bush.

When it was light outside and not too hot, we’d do inconsequential jobs. Weeding, wood chopping, and little repairs here and there. Then, in the evenings, we’d cook and eat dinner together.

In that week, the world shrank a lot. It felt amazing.

Don’t get me wrong, the exploding toilet geyser that’s global politics was still very active. But it all felt less urgent than, say, getting a big pile of sticks for kindling before it got dark.

It might be selfish, but I think we’d all do well to retract the net of our attention a little.

Thus the commune.

Now I know that communes have a bad reputation. For some reason they seem to devolve into weird sex cults pretty frequently. Or maybe those are just the ones we hear about in the news.

Either way, for the avoidance of doubt, I think we should make a commune that has all the good bits and none of the, well, unsavoury stuff.

Just a shared vision, reconnecting with nature, a little community, and maybe a nice garden we can all tend to. Strictly no pagan orgies or anything like that.

Unless… maybe… you want to do the weird sex stuff…?

No! No, me either. I was just checking. For a moment I thought you might be into it. I’m just making sure we’re all on the same page. We’re definitely just going to do the community stuff and the garden. We’ll only grow things like pumpkins, tomatoes and potatoes to be safe. Corn, cucumbers and zucchinis will be strictly out of the question. This will be a good, wholesome Christian garden!

But you’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s a lot to organise before we start the fraught task of deciding which vegetables are too phallic. First we’ll need to buy a property. One that’s big enough to house you, me, and about 200 of our sexiest friends.

Why do they need to be sexy?

Oh. Well, I guess they don’t have to be sexy. But if you were forced to stare at the same people, months on end, at a secluded property, wouldn’t you want them to be?

We use flowers to decorate our homes, not big steaming piles of garbage, right? And if we’re all sharing one big house, wouldn’t it be nice to have something to look at? Especially if we’re all going to be sleeping in the same room?

What?

You can’t seriously expect me to build more than one room, can you? Look at me. I’m a writer with soft hands. You’ll be lucky if you get any shelter, if I’m being honest.

Let’s hope one of your sexy friends will be good at building stuff. None of mine are any use. They all work in offices or (even worse) the arts. The best thing they can make is a committee — just don’t expect any decisions.

Yes, one big room is just easier and more practical. It makes sense if you think about it. But don’t try to think about it too much. That’s not what the commune is about, you know? We’re all about going with the flow. Seeing how things end up. Letting go of our inhibitions.

Just you, me, and 200 of our sexiest friends in a remote location living in one big room, eating non-phallic vegetables we’ve grown.

It can’t be worse than things here.

It was a quiet Wednesday and I was sitting on the couch watching television. I lived on campus at the time, in a crowded cottage that had eight bedrooms. Most unusually, I had the place to myself.

Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, where I was studying, was big enough to have its own postcode. Hundreds of students, taking our first uncertain steps into adulthood, lived in a ramshackle collection of houses, apartment blocks, and halls, all a short amble from each other. This proximity led to constant noise and disruption.

I was lying on our couch, flicking absently between channels and enjoying a rare moment of solitude, when someone kicked the front door open.

Two good friends of mine (who I will graciously not name) barged into my house. One of them had an old landline phone receiver, the spiral cord still attached, stuck to his ear. He had achieved this by looping sticky tape around his head, over his hair, several times like a halo.

“I’m Telstra Man,” he bellowed while I sat paralysed with confusion on the couch.

He then stalked, with great purpose, to the home phone that was sitting on the coffee table next to the TV. In one big, sweeping movement, he pulled it out at the wall, and dropped it on the floor.

“And this phone has been disconnected.”

They both left as abruptly as they had arrived, through the back of the cottage this time. I sat, stunned, blinking at the swinging door.

I distantly heard this routine being repeated in the cottage behind me, and then the one behind that. Such was the chaos of campus living. I went back to watching television, and took a mental note to ask them what the hell that was all about next time I saw them.

A few days later, they told me they’d had a few drinks and decided to see what huffing glue was like. Telstra Man, we all discovered, was the result. They pulled at least half a dozen phones out of cottage walls before the glue fumes wore off and they came to their senses.

This was a weird story at the time. It feels even more insane being examined in the rear vision mirror, middle age rapidly approaching from the front. I look at my friends now, still mad, but more settled. It’s amazing some of us made it into adulthood at all.

But amongst the chaos – or perhaps because of the chaos – some serious creative talent grew out of that Wagga Wagga campus.

There are many writers, artists, photographers and filmmakers who I am proud to know.

One of those people is Angus Mordant.

In all truth, I wasn’t very close to Angus at university, but I remember thinking he was a self-possessed young guy, someone who sat a bit above above the bedlam. Angus was studying photography, and I’d rarely see him without a very serious-looking SLR camera slung around his neck.

I only had one year at Wagga with Angus, before he packed up and headed to the more sophisticated university scene of Melbourne. But we stayed friends on Instagram and I watched his career unfold as we both grew up. While I was plugging away in Australia’s news media, Angus was climbing the ranks as a photojournalist in America. I always found his pictures to be utterly compelling – Angus has a gift for capturing the drama of a moment.

Things have quietened down a bit for Angus recently. He got married, had a son and started doing more of the work that’s amenable to family life – weddings, portraits and the like.

But in these more tranquil times, Angus started posting a new series of photos. They are, I think, the perfect antidote to the gloomy news about Artificial Intelligence which I have been recently covering.

They’re a collection of pictures taken by Angus’s two-and-a-half-year-old son, Oliver

The story goes that one day Oliver found an old, broken lomography camera in some boxes and refused to hand it back. He ran around their home, pretending to be a photographer, no doubt inspired by his father.

Angus decided to foster this interest, and bought Oliver a cheap disposable camera – he took to it very quickly.

“I only had to show him which way to point it, where to look, and what button to press a couple of times,” Angus said.

What followed was a series of surprisingly beautiful, perspective-shifting photographs.

It’s funny looking at the world through the eyes of a two-year-old. There are the obvious differences, of course. Because Oliver is low to the ground (due to his toddler-sized height) everyday objects like bins, bikes, and shopping trolleys tower in his pictures.

But then there are the more subtle details. Like the soft smiles of adults who are clearly disarmed by a toddler carrying a camera.

And then there are the people who don’t notice Oliver at all.

It’s also an interesting study in what a child finds worthy of attention. Birds and dogs feature heavily. But I find some of the most interesting pictures are of the nondescript detritus of city-life.

What made him capture this moment, I wonder? Was there something about this scene that he liked, or was it just random?

Angus thinks that most of the time, at least, Oliver is making considered choices. .

“If he’s in his stroller, he’ll say ‘go this way, go that way’, point to what he wants to photograph,” Angus says.

Like a lot of artists, Oliver doesn’t care much for people interfering with process. He’ll ignore Angus’s suggestions on subjects, and is emphatic about when he will (and will not) take his camera out on an excursion. There’s no reasoning with genius.

Angus doesn’t interfere much with the final product, either. There’s no cropping of photos or straightening of horizon lines. He’ll occasionally bring the exposure up or down a bit, but only to make the subject of Oliver’s attention visible.

Because the photos are being taken on a disposable camera, they have a fuzzy dream-like quality. I’d call them nostalgic, but this seems like an ill-fitting emotion to impose on the work of a toddler.

In fact, it seems pretentious to impose any deeper meaning onto these photos at all. Part of what makes them so remarkable is their guilelessness. They’re a very pure form of art, when you think about it. Made in the vacuum of pure experience, not yet impacted by the expectations or pretensions of adulthood.

In the time of artificial perfection, I find them to be life-affirming. Oliver is so young he can barely walk, but already he’s compelled to make.

And in the smallest of ways, his art has managed to alter the world. In writing this story, I’ve spoken with Angus for the first time in over fifteen years. I’ve learnt about his life, his work, and his family. His son’s photos were a bridge to human connection. More than ever, moments like these matter.

Art is our inalienable birthright, intrinsically linked to our humanity.

Thank you, Oliver, for the timely reminder.

Oliver has an Instagram page which I highly, recommend. You can also give his dad Angus a follow here.

It’s like they’re live blogging an old football match that’s being repeated on TV.

Specifically they write: “Christ has risen!” with a jaunty exclamation of surprise. What, really? That bearded socialist who was crucified a couple of thousand years ago? Back from the dead, you say? Well, I didn’t see that coming.

For many people, this is a day of reflection. I certainly find myself wondering whether Jesus would bother performing the same miracle today, were he amongst us now. More likely, I think, he’d wake up, look at the news on his phone for a bit, and decide to stay inside the cave where it’s nice and calm.

Could you blame the guy? It’s so bleak out there. Just look at all the atrocities that are being performed in His name.

I am, of course, referring to the proliferation of weird hot cross bun flavours.

This is a topic which I have unusually strong opinions on.

One time, when I was producing ABC radio at Easter, we were so short on stories the host gave me a whole talk break with him in the studio. I spent that time slagging off people who toasted instead of microwaving their hot cross buns.

I was surprisingly venomous. I was unsurprisingly not invited back into the studio.

But my thoughts on whether microwaving or toasting is the superior bun heating method are moderate compared to how I feel about the novelty flavour crisis. I might not be religious, but I still think it’s ungodly to sell Dorito-flavoured hot cross buns.

And yes. I know their purpose isn’t to be pleasing to taste — they exist to start conversations. To create cheap marketing hype. I’m also aware that, by writing this silly little article, I have fallen into their infuriating trap.

But if someone starts running through the street naked, clucking like a chicken, and lobbing eggs at strangers, am I supposed to just politely ignore them? Say, ‘well, they only want attention’ and walk on unaffected? That seems wholly insufficient. There is no satisfying response to behaviour that’s intentionally socially abhorrent .

So, I think, sometimes it’s better to acknowledge such matters, rather than hoping they blips out of existence through sheer apathy.

Frankly, I am always a bit appalled by food that’s designed, first and foremost, to create social media fuss. That applies to strangely flavoured chips, biscuits, or milk. Food is meant to be eaten and, ideally, enjoyed.

There is something about turning it into a marketing ploy, or one-off novelty purchase, that I find to be a touch dystopian.

But nothing is more horrid in both theory and execution than Dorito and jalapeño flavoured hot cross buns. When the four horsemen of the apocalypse come riding in, this is surely what they’ll have packed in their lunchboxes. What a cursed combination of pastry and ultra-processed junk food.

Appalling. Unforgivable. A sign of the end times.

Yes. Back into your cave, Jesus. Like an unyeasted hot cross bun, it’s best today you do not rise.

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She then takes a sip of her cocktail — it’s extravagantly fancy. Filled to the brim with ice, decorative flowers and luridly-coloured alcohol. I had opted for a martini.

I nod, but I’m not sure I agree. How could men possibly know what they’re in for with Amy?

She is, of course, gorgeous. Young, tanned, blonde, big lips, and an enviable figure. We’re socially conditioned to assume these traits come at the expense of intelligence. But Amy is no fool.

A few years ago, bored by the monotony of her work, Amy decided to make some cash on the side. A friend recommended that she tried using a website called Seeking Arrangement (now just called Seeking). For women, the service is free. Men are the ones who have to pay.

And pay they do.

For $110 a month you’ll get full access to the website.Then if you match with a woman you like, and come to a mutually acceptable agreement, you’ll pay to date her. In almost all instances, that will mean sex. But you might also be up for nice dates, shopping allowances and a weekly upkeep. It depends how deep your infatuation and pockets run.

I ask Amy to let me have a go on the app, she passes her phone across the table.

I hold my drink in one hand and her mobile in the other as I swipe through the profiles of prospective suitors.

An older man, in his 60s perhaps, sits in a garden. He’s wearing a faded blue polo shirt. He isn’t smiling in the photo, and has deep lines etched in his face, like someone who has spent a lifetime working in the sun. It’s obvious that he’s snapped a selfie in his backyard. I swipe no.

The next profile belongs to a young man. I think he could be a tradie, stocky, tanned, and wearing high-vis in a couple of his photos. He also uses unsmiling selfies, but has at least has one group shot with friends. They are an amorphous herd of nuggety men with buzz cuts.

I keep swiping.

“None of these people look like they have money,” I say.

Not that money looks the same for everyone. Custom-made suits, yachts, and trips to the Amalfi Coast is just one expression of wealth – the kind we see in magazines and on television shows. There’s also corporate money, small business money, trust fund money, drug money, new money, dwindling old money – each with their own specific tells.

In my many years of working in the media, and generally courting interesting people, I’ve encountered them all.

But these guys, who I’m flicking through quickly on someone else’s dating app, just look like ordinary men. The kinds of blokes you’d swipe ‘no’ to on Hinge, Tinder or Bumble. Maybe that’s why they’re here.

“There are a lot of time wasters,” Amy says. “You’ve got to spend a lot of time filtering them out.”

That happens in the form of long online conversations. There’s no meeting for coffee or chatting in person — that would come at a cost. Amy is clear with her expectations.

She sends them a list of services, and how much they cost. ‘You can take me out for dinner for this much. You can sleep with me for that much. If you want me to stay the whole night, it will cost you this’.

Clear communication is important in any relationship.

I went on a few dates with a very rich man once. We matched on Tinder and struck up a conversation about cars. In one photo he was sitting in a Porsche — I assumed it was a rental, or belonged to a friend — but I didn’t ask and he didn’t say otherwise. His name was James.

James and I had loose plans for a casual Sunday date, but then both of us got extremely drunk the night before. We texted back and forth, threatening to cancel, laughing about our shared predicament. Eventually, we bravely decided to go for a walk.

We met at the Bondi headland and then ambled south along the ocean path. I was pasty, puffy and sweating last night’s booze through my pores. James didn’t look much better. But the conversation was lively and fun anyway, so we decided to keep things going and get dinner.

“Have you ever been to Mimi’s?” he asked as we arrived at Coogee.

I hadn’t, but said it sounded good. I assumed we would be going to a cheap-and-cheerful local pub. In fact, it was one of Sydney’s more expensive restaurants. It didn’t take me long to realise. The people at the tables around us were well-dressed, and had clearly been preparing for a special meal out.

We were just two supremely hungover pieces of shit.

I expected to be politely but firmly escorted from the premises. The woman at the door immediately recognised who I was with.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” she asked.

“I have,” James replied with a slight smirk. “I’d like a table with a view,”

“That won’t be a problem,” she replied. “We’re just finishing up with lunch service, but let me take you to the bar while you wait. We’ll send the sommelier over.”

Within moments, an elegant young man arrived and presented a different menu to the one that was on the table. James chose a bottle of wine towards the back of the pages and by the time the table was ready, I was once again drunk.

Realising that splitting the bill would leave me destitute, I asked James to choose what we would eat. We ate “caviar bumps” (served on the flesh between my thumb and forefinger as though it were cocaine – a crass bit of Eastern Suburbs food theatre), several plates of exotic entres, and steak that was so expensive it warranted a personal introduction by the head chef.

By the end of the night, we had shared more than two bottles of wine, a large amount of food, and I was seeing double. James — who it transpired had made a fortune from a cyber security company — was openly vaping at the table.

But no one was stopping him. Perhaps, because the bill came out to be over $6,000

I would price the subsequent two-day hangover as around $12,000 of pain.

I only met up with James a few more times after that – I knew it wasn’t going to be a forever thing. He was a busy man preoccupied with his own, complicated life.

But even if it did work out, how could anyone feel comfortable with such a power imbalance?

James was younger than me, in his early 30s, and rich in a way I struggled to comprehend. Meanwhile, by all measures, I am a fairly ordinary person.

I did ask once why he didn’t date beautiful influencers – we both lived in Bondi at the time, where they are a plentiful resource.

“I hate gold diggers,” he’d told me. “They just ask me to buy them designer bags all the time.”

Clearly I was out of my depth. When James had been on a holiday in Japan, he asked if I wanted anything. I requested a stupid souvenir and was thrilled when he gave me a large dumpling-shaped pillow.

I should have asked for a Louis Vuitton handbag.

That was one of my last conversations with James. The momentum stuttered, the text messages slowed, and then eventually stopped altogether. I had been a brief tourist in his life, but wasn’t sad to go home.

When it comes to relationships, I ask very little, expect slightly less, and am still often disappointed. Sometimes I think I prefer it to the horror of truly being known. Cracking open one’s sternum, prying apart the ribs, and revealing your vulnerable inner core and all its desires is surely an act of madness.

Does Amy have such qualms? Certainly not when it comes to asking for material things.

She’s been flown to exotic locations for all-expenses-paid holidays. She’s drunk champagne as old as me on private terraces with ocean views. I suspect at least one of Amy’s men has sent himself broke – or close to it – trying to please her.

We finish our dinner, Amy and I. We then meet another group of friends at a bar. When it’s late enough that the busses aren’t running, I decide to go home and sleep.

Amy gets an offer to see a man – she’ll get a thousand dollars for spending a couple of hours with him.

“My missus is going soon,” he’d texted her. “I’ll send a car when she’s gone.”

We both head outside together to wait – Amy insists on paying for my Uber home. At first I refuse her offer, but she eventually wins by biting me on the arm.

“Let me do something nice for you!” she shouted at me while I laughed.

The next day I wake up with a bruise on my arm and a lingering anxiety. Was Amy okay? I reached for my phone and fire off a text message.

“How did you go?” I ask.

I don’t have to wait long for a response.

“Great. Got a grand for chatting shit for an hour and a half,” she replied. “No sex just kisses.”

Are all relationships transactional? Is love something that can be put on scales, measured and priced? I’d like to think that’s not the case. But if they are, one thing’s certain – some people are better at negotiating terms than others.

Unsurprisingly, he was feeling a bit nervous. It had been almost a decade since they’d spoken. To help himself calm down, he decided to go for a swim in the park’s pond. It was chilly – Amsterdam often is – but he didn’t mind. He’d done this hundreds of times before.

So this man stripped off all his clothes, and jumped into the frigid water completely naked. After doing a few laps he was feeling much more relaxed. His attention then turned to an ornamental fountain spout in the middle of the water.

Now, many times in the past this dude had used the gushing water jets to thoroughly clean his bung hole.

Yes, inside and out. Yes, in public.

Because he had time, he decided he would make use of the fountain and give himself a good pond water clean. So he positioned himself over the nozzle and waited.

What he didn’t know was that the council had recently decided to up the fountain’s water pressure. Quite a bit, actually. You know those videos where people use pressure washers to carve through dirt on old concrete? I imagine what he experienced was similar to putting one of those between your cheeks.

At this point you might think you want to stop reading. I implore you not to. This is leading somewhere, I promise.

So when the fountain went off, the water cut through this fellow’s intestines with little more resistance than a finger poking a hole through a freshly baked muffin.

He was now facing a very serious medical emergency. Bleeding and in tremendous pain, he somehow managed to drag himself to the shore. When his son arrived, his first words to him after almost a decade were: I need to go to a hospital.

So much for making a good impression.

He was taken to the emergency department and quickly received surgery to repair the damage. The risk of infection was incredibly high, but he refused antibiotics. Remarkably, he survived with only a gnarly scar on his stomach.

The name of the madman who positioned his puckered anus over a waterspout in a public fountain and skewered his own intestines?

Wim. Hof.

No, really. I’m serious.

Wim Hoff, for those who don’t know (and sorry if that’s you – that reveal would have really lost its punch) is the man who popularised ice baths and cold water swimming. He believes extreme cold exposure can be used as a treatment for all kinds of ailments from autoimmune diseases to depression.

So is there actually something to this cold exposure malarky?

The science says it’s plausible, but the studies backing it up are patchy. At the very least it probably won’t hurt, assuming you don’t have any kind of heart problems or arrhythmia. Does it at least feel good then? I’m embarrassed to admit I can personally answer this question.

There was a time I would regularly turn up to Coogee Beach a bit before 6am on Sundays, and jump into a tub filled with water and ice bought from a servo. For two minutes I would sit shivering and in agony, trying to ignore the feeling of my hands and feet cramping. This did not feel good.

What I did enjoy was getting out. I’d run into the ocean which then felt comparatively warm, almost like a bath. It was a pleasant rush of endorphins and relief. Akin, I would say, to punching yourself repeatedly in the head and then suddenly stopping.

The other thing Wim Hof is known for is his breathwork technique. He teaches a peculiar method which involves hyperventilating and then holding your breath for a really long time.

Proponents claim it results in a high which rivals drugs and alcohol. I, not a proponent of breath work, would say they’re probably not drinking or taking enough. People also say it boosts mood, mental clarity, and can help with chronic pain.

Wim Hof also uses this technique to swim underwater for long periods of time. If this is something you’d like to learn, you can go to his expensive two-day workshops (they cost around $3,000 AUD, don’t include accommodation and will give you 4-hours of group time with the man himself).

It sounds like a bit of a grift to me, but who knows? Maybe Wim Hof is onto something. No one said the universe will withhold its secrets from people who perforate their own bowels with pond water.

But this I do know for certain: hyperventilating and then holding your breath underwater is a very good way to die. There have been a number of drownings associated with Wim Hof’s practice. Whether you’re in a bath, shower, pool or ocean it’s really best to just breathe normally.

If, given all of the above, you’re still drawn to the Ice Man and his philosophies, that’s fine.

But I do ask this of you: everytime you consider following a suggestion made by Wim Hof, I first want you to imagine his quivering hole positioned above a public fountain’s nozzle. Then I want you to take a few deep breaths (if you are not near a body of water feel free to hyperventilate) and ask yourself, is this the man I want to take health advice from?

What happens next is up to you.

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