From London…
An atypical Dispatch because I’m on the road. (Issue #141)
A few smaller pieces this time instead of my typical short goodies and a longer think piece. I’m in London for the launch of the RMN Europe Ascendant Boot Camp on Tuesday, which has kept me busy.
Social Media, Kids, and Teens
Despite my massive disagreement with Jonathan Haidt’s wrongheaded bestseller, The Anxious Generation, that doesn’t mean that I think the internet is a safe space for kids and teens. Two recent articles bring this into focus.
The first from The New York Times ($) about a young Dutch woman (18) influencer who goes by “Jacky Dejo.” She has been an online personality since she was 6. First as a snowboarder, later a bikini model and now with an OnlyFans. She has been a target for pedophiles for years, and while she is aggressive in fighting these villains, she shouldn’t have to be.
The second, “A 14-Year-Old Boy Killed Himself to Get Closer to a Chatbot. He Thought They Were In Love,” is from The Wall Street Journal. It’s about Sewell Setzer III, an often-bullied kid who committed suicide using his stepfather’s gun. The article suggests that the direct cause of the boy’s death was his fantasy relationship with a bot version of Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. I pinged my friend, UCLA Psychology Prof. Benjamin Karney about this, to which he replied:
I have been following that story. The headline is super misleading. This kid had plenty of reasons to be sad. He shot himself with his dad's gun, which he somehow had access to. I can understand the desire for his parents to deflect the blame. Would he have killed himself if he did not have access to a chatbot? We will never know, but he certainly would not have killed himself if he did not have access to the gun.
I agree with Ben (although I acknowledge there are other ways to commit suicide), and I also think that the article doesn’t take the bullying he experienced at school into sufficient account.
But not all bots are dangerous
Ethan Mollick, whose Co-Intelligence book I can’t praise highly enough, recently did this: “I invited a live HeyGen AI avatar to a Zoom meeting with the instructions that it run the most stereotypical corporate Zoom meeting ever.” It’s hilarious (and a little chilling because it’s so accurate). You can see it here. And don’t miss the sequel where Mollick has two iterations of the same AI on the same Zoom.
Post-Election pieces worth your time
As people on all sides of the political aisle grapple with the events of last week, here are two pieces worth your time.
The latest issue of Michael Estrin’s Situation Normal, ordinarily a deft exercise in comedic writing, is a serious, thought-provoking meditation about resilience for the folks disappointed by the election results.
The November 8 issue of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American digs into the unpleasant surprise that many Trump voters are experiencing now that the election is over and they are learning about the nitty gritty of Trump’s policy plans:
Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information.
When she told me about this piece (during a FaceTime as I was walking around London, see picture below), La Profesora wisely observed how similar this is to the post-Brexit “we did what?” shock here in the U.K. after voters learned about the details of what Brexit meant.
From London…
I first came to London with my parents, grandparents, and brother when I was 13 for my Bar Mitzvah. (It’s a long story.) I have many clear memories of that trip—not just of the touristy things but also how Evan, my late younger brother, delighted in calling out “Taxi!” to the black cabs. Since Evan had a speech impediment, what he actually yelled was “Tass-Key!” One night that trip, my parents went out to dinner with friends, leaving me and Evan in the hotel. We ventured out, nervous but excited, walked down the street to a little shop, bought Cadbury’s chocolate, and scurried back to our hotel room.
I’ve been back to London many times. One summer, La Profesora and I lived here during grad school. The last cluster of times I was here was ten years back, during the time we lived in Norway. We came with the kids as tourists (we all loved the Harry Potter Studio Tour, and later I also gave a pair of keynotes—one about Shakespeare because it was the anniversary of his birth and death (same day, kind of, but different years).
Like all cities, London has changed. These days, the black cabs aren’t so black: they have huge advertisements on the sides encouraging people to use taxis rather than Uber. I agree with the sentiment but not the aesthetic.
This 2000 year old city is a lot more diverse than it was a few decades ago, with people of all races and food from every imaginable culture readily available.
Here’s a picture from an Asian neighborhood near my hotel:
Beyond the ubiquitous American fast food restaurants (McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell), there’s also a surprising amount of American culture that pops up. Smash burgers: I didn’t realize they had gone global. This one, for a live show, made me laugh:
It’s not just American culture permeating London. This shop made me wish my son were here with me:
Bike-riding delivery folks are everywhere:
One thing that is still quite different than the US is the bookstores. I wandered into a Waterstone’s down the street from my hotel. I recognized at most 25% of the title. The rest were wonderfully new to me. I didn’t buy this one…
But I may go back because an adventure story told from the point of view of a Welsh Corgi may just be a necessary purchase. I wonder, should I read it out loud to Ace and Jodie, my corgis, when I get home?
They’d probably just be annoyed that I interrupted their perpetual nap.
Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday.
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