"'I was poly before poly was a term,' he says, blue hair tied back, maroon nail varnish on his toes."

"Jay, an IT consultant and self-confessed computer nerd, grew up in suburban New Jersey and became interested in polyamory at the age of ten after reading Robert A Heinlein sci-fi books featuring sexually promiscuous open marriages. His first teenage relationship was nonmonogamous.... He moved to Somerville in the mid-1990s to find many people he knew coalescing around Boston’s university hub — either tech nerds he’d met in online chatrooms or those who attended the sci-fi conventions he would frequent. Large numbers of them were interested in polyamory. 'We had all independently been working on this thing [polyamory], and we found each other and we had a lot to talk about,' he says. He started organising casual poly meet-ups in people’s homes, applying the same academic rigour to discussions about romance as they did to technology. 'How do you handle jealousy? How do you handle getting a new partner when you’ve had one for a while?'"

From "Forget love triangles. Meet the ‘polycule’ with 80 people in it/Polyamory is on the rise — especially in one US city where romantic partners have organised themselves into ever expanding networks. Yes, it can get complicated, they tell Megan Agnew" (London Times).

Who knew the polyamory movement was so connected to science fiction? And yet one can imagine the sort of adolescent who gets submerged in science fiction while dreaming about an alternative to the existing world of finding a real-life girlfriend/boyfriend. Some entirely new structure is needed, he thinks.... blue hair tied back, maroon nail varnish on his toes.

ADDED: A little colloquy between me and ChatGPT.

"... 'soft-clubbing'... 'what happens when a generation raised on overstimulation and burnout wants the fun without the fatigue.' Think lo-fi coffee shop D.J. sets at 2 p.m...."

"... with everyone behaving a little too respectfully. Perhaps that explains the natural — or 'natty,' if you’ve been here a while — wine craze that has taken over New York’s restaurant and bar scene in the last couple of years, attracting 20-somethings looking to drink a little more 'intentionally.' And perhaps that’s how you get something called a wine rave at Public Records, a vast multilevel bar in Brooklyn, hosted by the D.J. collective Beverages on a Saturday afternoon. Here, finance bros in light blue linen button-ups and weathered Stan Smiths milled about clutching wine glasses, sediment occasionally pooling at the bottom."

From "Is Partying Dead, or Are You Just Old? Gen Z was alive during a week of supper clubs, daytime raves and rooftop ragers in New York City" (NYT).

Lots of photographs at the link, including the one I captured a segment of, because I've been keeping track of men (and women) in shorts:

I'll translate my feelings into a survey:

What do you think of young people going out "partying" dressed in shorts?

Only if you're "going out" to a friend's basement den or backyard.

Only if you look better because your bare legs are out in the open.

Only if it's part of an important heat-regulation strategy.

Only if they're all doing it because everyone else is.

Only if it happened to be what you already had on when you decided to leave the house.

 

pollcode.com free polls

"It was just a country store for country people and that’s what it is today, they just don’t understand."

Said Tommy Lowe, the 94-year-old co-founder of Cracker Barrel, describing how things began (in 1969) and how things should remain, quoted in "Cracker Barrel co-founder, 93, slams CEO after ‘pitiful’ rebranding fail: 'Throwing money out the window'" (NY Post).

“They’re trying to modernize to be like the competition — Cracker Barrel doesn’t have any competition,” Lowe told WTVF Thursday. “I heard she was at Taco Bell. What’s Taco Bell know about Cracker Barrel and country food? They need to work on the food and service and leave the barrel — the logo alone.”...

"She" = CEO Julie Felss Masino, who Lowe claims, doesn't know who he is and has never met with him. We're told "Masino began implementing changes to the menu, interior design and prices soon after [becoming CEO] in November."

"Once they are in, there is a considerable amount of pressure to uphold the sorority’s culture. Darnell talks about the 'rules,' mainly around conduct..."

"... though she is sworn to secrecy on the specifics. 'My sorority will text me all the time saying, you need to take this down [from social media], if something might be shining the wrong light,' she said. 'They really do protect my image and I’m very grateful for that. They’re like a PR agency. They keep a close eye.' Though she loves the group enormously, she has taught herself to resist its monolithic culture. 'When I was a freshman [first year], I lost my individuality and everything I talked about was sorority-sorority-sorority,' she said. 'I talked the way I thought people wanted me to and felt the pressure to be perfect and to always say the perfect thing. I didn’t voice my opinion, didn’t want to seem like I was "too much." I’ve got an outgoing, outspoken, goofy personality and I felt like I lost that.' She has since 'found myself,' wanting to be a sports reporter when she graduates next year...."

From "Inside sorority rush, the blood sport making college girls millionaires/Competition for sisterhoods is big business for Kylan Darnell, the Alabama student who chronicles it all like a reality show. Shame her sister wants no part" (London Times).

Here's Darnell's TikTok feed if you want to see what's so popular in this sorority-girl category. 

I went to college in 1969 and everyone I knew believed sororities were about to go extinct. As if hippiedom would reign forever. Anyway... what's interesting here? Lots of things. The intersection of college and TikTok. The endless fascination with makeup and fashion.

But I'll just cherry-pick one thing: "They keep a close eye." Is that the expression? Did she conflate 2 expressions — "close watch" and "keep an eye on" — possibly influenced by the opening lines of "I Walk the Line" — "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine / I keep my eyes wide open all the time"? I think "close eye" is idiomatic. More important, is that what young women want — a close eye?

CORRECTION: I had originally named the wrong Johnny Cash song. I mix up "I Walk the Line" with "Ring of Fire." Honestly, I've disliked both songs for a long time. They both have a line drawn, and he's either inside the line or outside of it. He's fixated on that line. It's all about control and loss of control.

"More than three-quarters of [University of Georgia 46 freshman girls'] rooms were decorated in... a 'LoveShackFancy Southern mishmash.'"

"(The luxury brand LoveShackFancy’s dorm decor includes a $225 shower curtain and a $115 heart-shaped throw pillow.) [The resident assistant] said she hasn’t seen professional interior decorators on the halls, but she watched in awe as parents took three to four hours to set up their daughters’ rooms.... The flouncy decorators, she said, are typically extroverts who plan to be a part of Greek life on campus, and they come to college to befriend similar people. A minimalist decorator, on the other hand, is 'maybe doing a major that is a little bit more analytical, or is into more niche activities.' She added, '... they really won’t interact, even on the floor.'..."

From "The over-the-top world of luxury dorm decorating/Wallpaper, custom headboards and $469 mattress toppers aren’t the norm in college rooms. But they are everywhere on TikTok" (WaPo).

This is how it looks on TikTok:

There are so many old songs that might soar into viral popularity with young people... if they'd only listen.

I'm reading "The Song Was a Hit 20 Years Ago. It Just Got a Video. Decades-old tracks by artists including Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, LL Cool J and Talking Heads are finding younger fans. Record labels hope new videos will feed their interest" (NYT).

But some of these videos sound like what AI would concoct. They're "overly literal" presentations of the lyrics: "In the video for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 'Free Bird,' an older man remembers his carefree younger days before taking his motorcycle out for one last ride; the video for Bob Marley’s 'No Woman, No Cry' features a struggling Jamaican mother and her husband, who works in a faraway city...."

Here's an example, discussed in the article, of a more artful approach:

That came out 4 years ago and has gotten over 10 million views. We're told it's inspired new Peggy Lee fans to make their own videos out of Lee's recording — not only of "Fever,” but also  “Is That All There Is?” and “Big Spender.”

I wonder how that music sounds to young people, given what they've grown up listening to. Peggy Lee sounds good to me, and I grew up listening to 50s and 60s rock and roll. I'm 74, and Peggy Lee was my parents' music. But then I love going back to the 1920s, to what would have been my grandparents' music. The good is more heavily concentrated in the old. It's recorded music. Listen to whatever is best.

"You’ve heard of the 'loser' or 'lonely men' epidemic, where men disengage from relationships, accountability, and even basic hygiene, blaming society for their failures."

"But there’s a new player in town, and no, he doesn’t wear cargo shorts or live in his gaming chair. Meet the performative male: polished, aesthetically curated, emotionally fluent—on the surface. But look a little closer, and things get complicated. Welcome to the age of the performative man, a rebranded version of the emotionally unavailable alpha. Only this time, he comes armed with wired headphones, tote bags, vintage clothes, matcha lattes, Spotify playlists ft. Clairo or Laufey, and Sally Rooney books. He knows his moon sign, wears wide-leg trousers, and posts aesthetic carousels with captions about healing and self-love."

Writes Ekta Sinha, in "Forget The Lonely Men Epidemic—The Performative Male Era Is Here, And We Need To Talk (And Run)/He knows his moon sign, wears thrifted clothes, and posts aesthetic carousels with captions about healing and self-love" (Elle India).

That's the best of a bunch of recent articles I found after noticing the term "performative male."

See also: "Crowds gather on Capitol Hill for pop-up 'Performative Male Contest' in Seattle" (Fox13 Seattle)("My best description of a performative male is a man who wears feminism and softness and certain music as a guy to allure women without actually knowing anything about what they’re putting on or talking about").

"The stereotype is of young men perpetually playing video games in their parents’ basements, too depressed and shut in to ask women out."

"But such exaggeration shouldn’t eclipse the broader and more subtle reality. You don’t have to be an incel to believe that the 'system' is fundamentally broken and rigged against your success... specifically homeownership.... This is, of course, a problem for all Americans — men and women alike. But, unpopular as it may be to say in some quarters of my party, the crisis affects one gender with particular potency. Like it or not, American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors. And when men whose self-worth is tied up in that aspiration realize they’ll never be able to buy a home, they’re bound to feel shame and anger.... It’s not just a matter of Democrats finding our own Joe Rogan, or making better use of TikTok, or using more 'authentic' language.... [I]f Democrats want to save our democracy... we should treat first-time home buyers as their own class.... [W]e should reinstitute the Obama administration’s $8,000 homebuyer’s tax credit, triple it to reflect present market conditions and index the benefit to inflation.... [T]he Democratic Party’s success hinges on our ability to enable men, in particular, to realize that hope and ensure their own success."

Writes Rahm Emanuel, in "What’s really depressing America’s young men/The U.S. has two overlapping problems: the housing crisis and despondency in young men" (WaPo)(gift link).

Is this a special appeal to men? Clearly, Democrats want to appeal to men, but this hardly seems to crack the code. Men would feel more manly if they owned a house? Did someone give Rahm Emanuel the assignment to connect the housing shortage issue to the problem known as men?

"Unlike the millennial generation — which largely absorbed technology as destiny, first in its techno-utopian promises, later in its gigified disappointments..."

"... these Gen Z refuseniks are not trying to reform the system. They’re walking away from it. That’s why the 'No Kings' rallies often look like the world’s largest retiree convention. This new group’s politics, to the extent that it has any, are not oriented toward revolution or regulation, but toward restraint, retreat and restoration. They want silence. They want limits. And if there is any hope of clawing back a shared reality from the hall of mirrors that is the modern internet, it might lie with them. We can only hope."

Writes Ryan Zickgraf, in "Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ at 40: Truer than ever/The cultural critic saw it all coming. And yet, in Gen Z, there are signs of hope" (WaPo).

"Morgan Wallen, baby!"/"From tailgates to patio parties the streets around Camp Randall were buzzing. Downtown Madison transformed into a party well before the gates opened."

"Bars were shoulder-to-shoulder, lines snaked outside of Jimmy John's, and parking spots went for as high as $100...."

Yes, the Morgan Wallen people were out in abundance yesterday, and there's a second concert tonight. This is my neighborhood, where I remember, long ago, listening to Pink Floyd wafting over from Camp Randall.

I hadn't realized it's been 28 years since there's been a concert in the football stadium. Nice. The crowd seems to have included lots of people from out of town. So many women in short shorts and cowboy boots. We talked to a couple who'd come in from Iowa for the big concert. Me, I'd never heard of Morgan Wallen, but what do I know? I found out he's the biggest star. I hope he and everyone else enjoy Madison.

If you watch the video, keep an eye out for the children selling lemonade. The reporter asks each of them what they'll do with the money, and you may be surprised at what they say.

"Interestingly, I think there is an argument to bring back the MRS degree."

My latest: I went inside Turning Point USA's conference for conservative young women

To get a sense of what I saw, watch this video of Charlie Kirk telling a 14-year-old in braces that she should only go to college to get an "MRS degree"

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— Madeline Peltz (@peltzmadeline) June 18, 2025

I don't think he said only.

And I don't think you can ignore the smile that broke out on that girl's face at 0:30. You can want more than one thing, and you don't have to pretend to yourself that you don't want those things that are not your career. 

"'It’s just a lot less pressure posting on TikTok,' said Sheen Zutshi, 21, a college student in New York. She uses Instagram to send direct messages..."

"... to her friends, but sees it as a more curated option — the sort of place where someone might earnestly post a photo of the night sky, like her older cousin did recently. 'It’s just really cute, because she’s a millennial,' she said."

From "Instagram Wants Gen Z. What Does Gen Z Want From Instagram? Young people are using Instagram for everything except the app’s original function" (NYT).

"It’s playground stuff," the juror said. There is "shunning" of a juror going on in deliberations, and "The experience I’ve had for the day and a half here I don’t think this is fair and just."

I'm reading "Weinstein Juror Complains to Judge About ‘Playground Stuff’ by Others/A member of the jury at Harvey Weinstein’s Manhattan retrial on sex crime charges said that another had become the subject of a 'bit of a shunning' during deliberations" (NYT).

Arthur L. Aidala, one of the defense lawyers, described the juror, who works in information technology at a bank, as “meek.” Mr. Aidala called the man a “25-year-old kid who lives with his grandmother” and “a computer kid” and he argued that the man’s concerns should be examined further before being brushed aside.... 

Justice Farber appeared unmoved and denied the defense motion, noting that the man had never said any of the jurors were being threatened. The juror’s statements were vague, the judge said, adding that perhaps “his youth makes him uncomfortable to experiencing conflict.”

Maybe these young people today aren't up to debating about different opinions, but is the problem with this one juror who came forward to report his discomfort, or is it with the jurors who are, supposedly, doing the shunning? Maybe they don't want to hear what they don't agree with. What if the new generation is losing the capacity to serve on a jury?!

"I love this style of clue, where even if you don't know the exact trivia (I've never heard of the band or the song) you can puzzle it out based on the context."

Writes Malika, at Rex Parker Does the NY Times Crossword Puzzle.

Here's the clue: "Girl in Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit.'"

One day everything new will be old, and one day everything will be forgotten. 

"I’m having little adventures, but yes, not on social media."

"I am painting, I am drawing, I’m doing photography. I’m climbing mountains and going on very long walks. I’m having little adventures, but yes, not on social media. I don’t think it’s something that would particularly serve my life, and I’m quite happy that I don’t have it."

Said Mia Threapleton, quoted in "Wes Anderson’s Newest Star Finds Inspiration Everywhere (Even a Napkin)/Mia Threapleton is Kate Winslet’s daughter but she’s intent on making her own way in Hollywood. That includes her deadpan nun in 'The Phoenician Scheme'" (NYT).

I hope young people today see that, but they'll only see it on social media.

"Sixty-four years ago, Connie Francis recorded 'Pretty Little Baby' as one of dozens of songs in a marathon recording session..."

"... that yielded three albums within two weeks. It did not, at the time, feel like a song that had the makings of a hit, so it landed on the B-side of the 1962 single... that was released in Britain. Since then, it was more or less overlooked. Then came TikTok... Over the last few weeks, 'Pretty Little Baby' has been trending on the social media app — it has been featured as the sound in more than 600,000 TikTok posts and soared to top spots in Spotify’s Viral 50 global and U.S. lists — bolstered by celebrities and influencers, like Nara Smith, Kylie Jenner, and Kim Kardashian and her daughter North, who have posted videos of themselves lip-syncing to it. The ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog used the song for a clip on TikTok in which she said Ms. Francis had long been her favorite singer...."

From "As ‘Pretty Little Baby’ Goes Viral, Connie Francis Is Joining TikTok/With a forgotten song becoming an unlikely hit, the 87-year-old singer is happy to be back in the spotlight" (NYT).

Interviewed, Francis said she didn't even remember recording the song, but, listening to it now, she pronounced it "cute." I remember when that kind of thing was the current music...

"Suddenly, while they were drinking their coffee...."

GenX here. Three people I knew died in the towers, human beings just like Taylor Lorenz, who got on the subway and went to work one day and then suddenly while they were drinking their coffee they had to decide whether to jump or burn to death.

Not a fucking punchline. https://t.co/drIyJJxgfn

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 30, 2025

"My children do not have phones; they are not allowed on social media. It does not matter. There was an afternoon, a few weeks back..."

"... when the six-year-old came home and sketched all these characters on a piece of paper: the ballerina with a coffee cup for a head, the shark in trainers, the bomber-jet crocodile. I thought he had a tremendous imagination. But he was just like a caveman after a hunt, drawing what he had seen. It is as Bob Dylan said to mothers and fathers across the land: 'Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.' You don’t even know what they are saying. There was a moment, a year ago, when all they wanted to hear was the Eighties anthem Everybody Wants to Rule the World. 'Why are our children into Tears for Fears?' I asked at the time...."

Writes Will Pavia, in "Do not read this article if you are over six. You won’t get it/Meet Ballerina Cappucina, Bombardino Crocodilo and Tung Tung Tung Sahur — the little monsters of TikTok whose express purpose is to rot your child’s brain" (London Times).

"The neighborhood has, in recent years, transformed into a fabulous theme park for young women of some privilege to live out their Sex and the City fantasies..."

"... posting and spending their mid-20s away. They all seem to keep impressive workout routines... have no shortage of girlfriends, and juggle busy heterosexual dating schedules. (The boys they consort with tend to be of the fratty variety.) They work in finance, marketing, publicity, tech — often with active social-media accounts on the side. They have seemingly endless disposable income. They are, by all conventional standards, beautiful. Occasionally, they are brunettes. Whatever their political beliefs, their lives seem fairly apolitical; as one 27-year-old lawyer on a walk with her best friend, both wearing identical puffer jackets, succinctly put their collective interests to me one day in April, 'Brunches, coffees, dinners, drinks with your girlfriends — that type of energy.' (They may be more political than they appear: 'You can have a Cartier Love bracelet and still care about immigrant rights,' said one person who lives in the neighborhood.)"

I'm reading "It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl/A new generation has transformed the neighborhood — and reshaped the fantasy of New York City living" (New York Magazine).

For the record: "Sex and the City" was a current TV show from 1994 to 2004. My own West Village experience was long before that: 1976 to 1981.

Back to the article:

"Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life."

"They watch as she draws on eyeliner and opens an energy drink for breakfast. They watch as she slumps behind a desk littered with rainbow confetti, balancing her phone on the jumbo bottle of Advil she uses for persistent migraines. They watch as she shuffles into the bathroom, the only corner of her apartment not on camera.... When Emily started streaming in 2016, her world felt impossibly small. She worked night shifts as a cashier on Long Island and spent her off hours at her boyfriend’s place, watching him play video games. At 19, she chose to save money by staying close to home and enrolling at the local community college, watching as all her friends moved away. One afternoon, her boyfriend told her to try Twitch, saying, as she recalled: 'Your life sucks, you work at CVS, you have no friends. … This could be helpful.'..."

From "Inside the life of a 24/7 streamer: ‘What more do you want?’ A lonely young woman in Texas has streamed every second of her life for three years and counting. Is this life, or a performance of one?" (WaPo)(free-access link, because there's a lot of material here, and I couldn't begin to quote everything interesting/horrible).

If it all feels very deja-vu, perhaps you are remembering JenniCam, which went on for 7 years and went off 22 years ago. Jenni — Jennifer Ringley — got on the David Letterman show: "He predicted that Ringley’s style of entertainment would 'replace television, because this is really all people want.... They’re lonely, desperate, miserable human beings... they want to see life somewhere else taking place.'"