Welcome to Rated and Slated, the column that is terminally online so you don’t have to be.
I’m on my phone a lot, but 17 hours of screen time sounds like a lot even by my standards.
But that’s the kind of hours that online journalist Taylor Lorenz is clocking on the regular. Fair play—I guess it’s like sports: you need someone like Michael Jordan to inspire the rest of us to go out and shoot some hoops.
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I’m all for Taylor’s idea of celebrating inbox infinity. “You kind of just have to treat email as a newsfeed or a Twitter feed—you’re going to miss some stuff, but you can’t worry about it,” she says, which is basically the idea behind Rated and Slated, our weekly dispatch from brainrot country.
As for her 15,607 unread emails? “If it’s really urgent, someone will find a way to reach me.”
So I guess I’ll be hearing from the Chicago Bulls about that trial anytime now.
In the meantime, here’s a new dunk compilation for you:
rated
HARRY STYLES’ MELTDOWN
It’s too late, music journalist. Harry Styles has already depicted himself having a meltdown, reclining helplessly in a little wooden chair, dressed in a suit jacket and tie with running shorts—just like that time you got fired over Zoom—engulfed in a surfeit of unassailable musical artistry spanning the decades, helplessly laughing his head off in an empty room as if overwhelmed by the voluminous content instantly available at the click of a button.
YOSHI POPCORN BUCKETS
The internet makes it so easy to get rich that failing to become an entrepreneur is basically a form of perversion. Every day offers a wonderful new business opportunity, like the Yoshi popcorn bucket, which is there to be grasped as long as you can avoid getting distracted wondering which part of the injection-molded Nintendo dinosaur to stick your dick into. This is going to be like the Dune Bucket ER visit all over again, isn’t it?
CRASS SUMMER
I’ve had The Feeding of the 5000 on repeat ever since watching Twitch streamer thatkidzayy listening to Crass for the first time. Yep, “they’ve got a bomb and they can’t wait to use it,” but there are few better ways to cope with the prospect of a nukey-b getting dropped on your head than spending your days in a beanie and a sleeveless vest (with a neck pillow?) skanking in the purple light before a giant wall of Funko Pops. I’m calling it now—it’s gonna be a Crass summer whether we like it or not, so you might as well start listening to anarcho-punk and D-beat.
PSYCHEDELICS FOR NORMIES
There’s a profound cosmic joke to be made about obsessive optimizers who live in the orbit of a San Francisco tech elite and are now turning to psychedelic drugs in the pursuit of longevity. The anxious quest to rationally order every aspect of your lived experience in accordance with scientific evidence is bound to leave you as burnt out as the most tie-dyed Haight-Ashbury acid casualty. You don’t need the Grateful Dead to tell you that this all ends in talking with the leaves in Golden Gate Park.
VODKA EYEBALLING
I had to run this video back a few times to check it wasn’t my friend who passed away when frosted tips were still a thing. Only the good die young, and unlike me, he was never afraid of ingesting neat spirits whatever the orifice. I’m not crying, you’re crying—no, really, these aren’t tears, I’ve just dosed my corneas with supermarket knockoff Smirnoff in a misguided tribute to him.
DEEP RUNS
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend reckless behavior which puts your health at risk and causes a nuisance to members of the public—even Scientologists. But at the same time, I could do with knowing whatever it is they used to help cure Tom Cruise of his neurodiversity, because it’s clearly worked a treat. I mean, he’s already warned me to stay away from dangerous street drugs like Adderall and Ritalin—but I’ve got to do something about this excessive screen time.
BALDMAXXING
Clavicular might have won the battle when his assistant snatched the wig of rival looksmaxxer Androgenic, but perhaps he lost World War Mog, as going bald is apparently coming back in fashion. We’ve got the goblin chad to thank for this—he needs to be at the table for the negotiations between the US and Iran; after all, we’re on hair-trigger alert for nuclear war.
slated
THE PR (PERSONAL RECORD) MACHINE
If the goblin chad fails, then the future of elections looks something like this: unsubstantiated claims about how much weight a political leader can shift; campaign videos filmed in the gym which cut before the concentric phase of a lift; your strongest friend bigging you up to the media—and maybe this is just a metric-to-imperial conversion mix-up, but I fear we’ll soon see political experts appearing on 24-hour news to earnestly discuss the latest incident of votemogging.
HAVING YOUR SEARCH HISTORY RELEASED TO THE WORLD
If the private world is about to end forever, then God chose the perfect messenger to break the news: Elizabeth Holmes from the TV show The Dropout. I’m not sure how reliable she is, but the former Theranos CEO certainly knows all about having your personal life made public. In the unlikely event that what she’s saying turns out to be true, then I’ll be looking forward to an infinity of Netflix miniseries based on the search histories of everyone I’ve ever met.
MRBEAST’S COLD, DEAD EYES
The thing that sets us serious and important journalists apart from normal, everyday posters is that we have an understanding of important concepts such as media law, which means you can write a thought piece about what’s behind MrBeast’s “cold, dead eyes” without landing a challenging legal case that gets you eliminated from the opinion games. It’s important to sometimes qualify what you’re saying with helpful disclaimers—for example, the important point that “ultimately, MrBeast isn’t a biblical monster who’s after your soul.”
“I’M NOT SAYING HE’S ON A PRAYER MAT FIVE TIMES A DAY”
We’ve gone through so many turns on the nostalgia machine that there are now meme accounts dedicated to replaying the Crusades—with t.A.T.u. remixes for the soundtrack—and Holy War fantasist video podcasts speculating over whether or not the King of England has, in fact, converted to Islam. I would do a gag about chainmail coming back in fashion, but the industry has already beaten me to it.
CONSCRIPTION
It’s time to ditch the red-light facemask and the topical finasteride before your youthful appearance gets you press-ganged into fighting in the latest iteration of some never-ending war or other. To think I’ve spent all of this time in the gym working on my knee health when I should’ve been doing everything possible to shred what remains of my ACL. If you’re after that sweet medical exemption, the good news is that there are plenty of fitness influencers giving out great advice on how to get a significant injury that renders you permanently unfit for military duty. Hooyah!
GETTING CHATGPT TO WRITE YOUR WEDDING VOWS
Look, if you’re considering doing this, just tap me up instead—I’ll give you a decent rate, as you’re clearly desperate. Here’s a sample of my work: “I, [Name], take you, [Name], to be my wedded [wife/husband], to have and to hold like a mobile device, engaging with you for up to 17 hours a day. Let our love be as full as my email inbox. I promise to never log off.”
Follow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoi
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