There's a long history of kids going viral on the internet. The most notorious of the early examples was David After Dentist, in which a dad uploaded a video of his young son who was wildly woozy on the way home from having a tooth removed. The video's virality caused me to reflect on my own then young children's shortcomings in a post called, My Kids Refused to Go Viral. But more recently, kids are going viral less often because of random, funny home videos caught on camera and more often through planned campaigns to turn them into influencers, models, and celebrities. And it's getting really disturbing. "Elissa and her daughter inhabit the world of Instagram influencers whose accounts are managed by their parents. Although the site prohibits children under 13, parents can open so-called mom-run accounts for them, and they can live on even when the girls become teenagers. But what often starts as a parent’s effort to jump-start a child’s modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to children." (Is there an internet user on the planet who wouldn't have predicted as much?) NYT (Gift Article): A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men.

+ NBC News: The next generation of influencers are here. And they’re less than 10 years old. At one point in his after-dentist moment, a dazed David asks his dad, "Is this real life?" Sadly, in this case, the answer once again is, "Yes."

2

Disco(ntent) Inferno

It's the question of our time: How can anyone still support this guy? He says something crazy and destructive, you scream into the void how crazy and destructive what he said was, and they still support him, leaving you and even the most vaunted political philosophers to wonder out loud, "Seriously, what the hell?" Consider this: What you see as a bug, many Americans see as a feature. The chaos you warn about is the the exact outcome they crave. Derek Thompson in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Americans Who Need Chaos. "'These [need-for-chaos] individuals are not idealists seeking to tear down the established order so that they can build a better society for everyone ... Rather, they indiscriminately share hostile political rumors as a way to unleash chaos and mobilize individuals against the established order that fails to accord them the respect that they feel they personally deserve.' To sum up their worldview, Petersen quoted a famous line from the film The Dark Knight: 'Some men just want to watch the world burn.'" To avoid concluding on a negative note, I'll share another quote from the same movie. "I promise you, the dawn is coming." (Of course, that line is in a speech from a guy whose nickname is Two-Face...)

+ Our current political state can probably best be examined through a psychoanalytical lens. So pull up a couch, because Freud saw this coming a century ago. "In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive (German: Todestrieb) is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness." (If only that could fit on a bumper sticker.)

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Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

"It was a humanitarian disaster. It was a drug crisis. It was a national security emergency. It was a cartel war and an American political battle all playing out during a presidential election year within the remote confines of their ranch." The excellent Eli Saslow in the NYT(Gift Article): A Family Ranch, Swallowed Up in the Madness of the Border. "Just when you think you’ve seen everything, this place still shocks you,' Jim said. He turned onto a rugged road that paralleled the border wall and drove for a few more miles, until he saw a campfire burning in the distance. 'Nobody should be out here,' he said. He was on the most remote corner of one of the most remote ranches in America, but as he drove closer, he counted more than 45 people sitting near the fire. Children shouted in French. A woman prayed in Arabic. 'What in the world is going on?' Jim wondered."

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Weekend Whats

What to Watch: Amy Schumer and Michael Cera star in Life & Bethon Hulu. It's what I would describe as comfort TV and the second season is better than the first.

+ What to Book: Most of what you heard about the crack epidemic is inaccurate. Donovan Ramsey provides an interesting look back at the crack era, from the personal to the political. When Crack Was King, A People's History of a Misunderstood Era.

+ What to Watch: I'm not sure it's a good idea that they're making a TV series based on Eli Manning's stint as Chad Powers, a walk-on quarterback trying to make a college team. But the original video that inspired it is great. Eli Manning goes undercover as a College Football walk-on.

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Extra, Extra

Cartelimarketing: "The first call came in December 2011. It was a real estate broker from Mexico offering an exciting opportunity: A buyer wanted to pay Stephen, a financial manager from the Midwest, $65,000 for his timeshare in Cancún – far more than the $47,000 he had spent on it six years earlier." Some Mexican cartels are expanding into a new business that can be as lucrative as cocaine: timeshare scams.

+ Money Order: "The United States on Friday imposed extensive sanctions against Russia, targeting more than 500 people and entities to mark the second anniversary of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and retaliate for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny." (Good, but sanctions alone won't work.) And here's a pretty incredible photo of Biden embracing Yulia Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny's wife.

+ Not Going Anywhere for a While: "Under his plan Israel would control security indefinitely, and Palestinians with no links to groups hostile to Israel would run the territory." Bibi's plan for Gaza will further isolate him from the international community.

+ Wrath Path: "Human life, Parker wrote, 'cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.'" Was that in a church? On a religious AM radio show? Nope, that's the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice in the recent ruling on embryos. Even Trump is worried that this is too crazy. But he also said he’ll defend Christianity from ‘radical left’ that seek to ‘tear down crosses.'

+ Playing with Spouse Money: Husband Snooping on Wife’s M&A Work Gets Insider Trading Charge.

+ Pants is Overrated: "The material can also show the outline of, well, things that should not be shown in a family-friendly environment. You have been warned about the photos... MLB's Fanatics-produced pants blasted by players, union chief: 'The pants are see-through.'" Hey, baseball wanted more excitement...

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Feel Good Friday

Daniel Pink has an excellent new column at WaPo (Gift Article), where he looks at possible solutions to big problems. His first installment: Why not pay teachers $100,000 a year?

+ "After a nail-biting descent and a tense silence from the lunar surface, the United States is back on the moon." Intuitive Machines lands on moon in nail-biting descent of private Odysseus lander, a 1st for US since 1972. (With big plans to come...)

+ "'Keep an eye on the bottom of your screen, watch this guy slide right in,' he says, as a hoodie-wearing college kid with a rag in hand glides across the floor with an effortless baseball-style slide over to a wet spot." The hardest working person in Bay Area hoops only spends seconds on the court.

+ How vending machines help states battle the opioid crisis.

+ "At Freedom Home, Mr. Favor also runs Broken Souls Rescue and Recovery, to facilitate adoptions, and he also created a program to connect recovering addicts with the dogs. This venture he called Pitbulls and Addicts, for 'two misunderstood breeds' that need care and acceptance." NYT (Gift Article): A Rescue Dog Saved Him From Addiction.

+ They kissed on a school bus. Now, 77 years later, they’re reconnected.

+ A fun way to look back (and use) Mac system releases from back in the day.