The final question

Welcome back to Thinking Is Cool, the podcast and newsletter here to make your next conversation better than your last. I’m your host Kinsey Grant. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here.

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Good morning, everyone. It’s a Friday, which means there’s no time to waste in 1) securing a happy hour plan and 2) getting to the good stuff in your favorite biweekly email. Let’s chat? Let’s chat.

What I’m thinking about this week

The ways that our narrowly curated online presence informs the broader interpretations of our real-life personality. Aka making TikToks.

This week has been about learning the ropes of creation on the social platform of choice for teens and 26-year-old podcast hosts with procrastination problems. I think I’m getting the hang of it (check out my TikTok here), but I’m curious to hear from you—what makes a creator’s TikTok value-add for you? I want to ensure that I’m creating content that’s good, not just there, ya know?

Also...I have been thinking...about...hats. Here’s the best place to buy the really good ones. The ones that smart, cool people wear.

What I’m reading this week

Look, I’m going to be absolutely 100% honest with y’all. I have not opened the beach read I said I was planning to devour last week (Red, White & Royal Blue). So...yeah, still reading that one.

But I did find a small treasure trove of great long- and longish-form content this week that’s worth sharing:

• If you too have watched Sex/Life on Netflix (I know you’ve at least read about that shower scene 👀), then you too know what it’s like to stare dumbfounded at your television, wondering how on earth women greenlit a show this absurd. Scaachi Koul sums it up pretty well for Buzzfeed: “Sex/Life” Is The Worst Show I Have Ever Seen, And I Have Watched All Of Television

• I recently started dating a Compost Man™ and watching him dump scraps into a giant bin in Union Square every Wednesday morning has forced me to rethink my own wasteful habits (even though we all learned in Episode 3 of Thinking Is Cool that voting is more important than composting). This piece by Alissa Wilkinson for Vox was a timely double-down on that introspection: The lie of “expired” food and the disastrous truth of America’s food waste problem

• There are a few things of which I would consider myself a superfan—Dua Lipa, the soundtrack to Mamma Mia 2, jalapeño sauerkraut from Hawthorne Valley Farm, and talented writers putting my existential dread into words. That last one is what Charlie Warzel did in this edition of his Galaxy Brain newsletter about so-called “hyperobjects.” I strongly urge you to read it: We Are Not Ready

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What I’m working on this week

Today is a day I’ve looked forward to with loads of anticipation and excitement since March 15, 2021—the day I quit my last job. Today is the last time (this season) that I’ll explain what episode I’m working on, and that’s because I’m working on the season 1 finale of Thinking Is Cool. It’s a bear of an episode, and I’m so thrilled with all that I’ve got lined up to go out with a bang.

The question for our season finale is this: Has Facebook been a net good or net bad for the world? If you’re reading this email, your immediate response is probably bad (I’m guessing based on nothing but gut instinct). But really think about it…

Facebook has managed to connect billions of people in corners of the world once rendered too dissimilar to find commonality...but it’s also eroded democracy and the democratic process across the globe.

Facebook has created entire industries that have bred countless jobs from advertising to tech support to media strategy...but it’s also failed to moderate content to a catastrophic, deadly extent.

So how do you make a judgment call? My guess is that the answer isn’t entirely binary—it’s far more complicated than good or bad. Facebook can be the root of all evil but also have increased access and eased lives for billions of people.

Either way, it’s a question worth asking: There is no arguing with the fact that, with Facebook’s genesis, Mark Zuckerberg set off an entirely new era of human history. Power like that deserves a second, third, and hundredth look.

So that’s what I’m doing for our finale episode of S1 of Thinking Is Cool (started at porn, finishing at Facebook...all in a season’s work).

I want to know what you think about Facebook:

• Good or bad? Can you pick one or the other?

• What benefits have Facebook and its cottage industries offered you? What detriments?

• Do you think Mark Zuckerberg is too powerful? Do you think Facebook in general is?

• Where do you think we go from here, at least as far as behemoth social media platforms are concerned?

Sound off in the replies. I can’t wait to hear ’em, so don’t hold back.

’Til next time,

Kinsey

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