Trump Is Still Alive, Apparently

Last week, the internet — or, rather, X.com, the everything app — slowly convinced itself that President Donald Trump had died. Or, at the very least, had some kind of medical emergency severe enough that he would step down. I’ll admit, as I was enjoying my last few days of summer vacation, I allowed myself to dream a little bit. I imagine that known super poster Vice President JD Vance, who was certainly watching all of this unfold online last weekend, was doing the same.

The “Trump is dead” narrative is, by my count, the fourth big meme/discourse/conspiracy theory cycle this summer to bubble out from under the bloated corpse of the site we once called Twitter and float all the way to highest levels of our government. A phenomenon my researcher Adam Bumas has been calling “LOLgislation” — the idiotic final stage of reactionary politics so dependent on Twitter that it now can’t function, or make sense, without it.

But let’s do a quick recap of how this all started.

The first big moment in the “Trump is dead or dying” narrative was thanks to a couple Getty photos of Trump’s hand, taken late last month. The photos, shared by journalist Aaron Rupar, showed Trump’s weird pig hand covered in blotchy concealer. Rupar’s X post was shared close to 10,000 times and immediately kicked off speculation that Trump was sick. It also kicked off renewed interested in Trump’s swollen ankles and chronic venous insufficiency diagnosis, which was revealed to the public back in July.

There’s really no polite way to phrase this, but, basically, there are a lot of people on the internet who really want Trump to die. So anything even remotely connected to his health really sets everybody off.

About a week after Rupar’s post went viral, The New York Post shared a story on X quoting Vance, that said, he was “ready to take over as president ‘if, God forbid, there’s a terrible tragedy’ with Trump.” This was largely received by X users as Vance teasing some kind of hidden knowledge that Trump was sick. Which is actually a good example of something I’ve noticed a lot over the years. A big news story gets stuck in people’s minds — in this case I think it was the Papal Conclave last spring — which then dictates how people start interpreting a new news story. In other words, a lot of internet users seemed to think that Trump’s hypothetical death was going to be telegraphed to the public like the previous famous old man to die in office.

Internet users also, famously, do not understand how journalism works, and this is doubly true for White House pool reporting. Which is, admittedly, kind of a weird system, I guess, made even more confusing by the fact that the White House pool is now full of right-wing influencers who also don’t know how it works. So when journalist Laura Rozen posted on X that Trump didn’t have any public events scheduled for Labor Day weekend and that he hadn’t been seen in public for a few days, users went into a frenzy.

There were dozens of viral posts on X claiming that the roads to Walter Reed Hospital were closed — even from people who should, honestly, know better, like Democratic strategist Max Burns. And the community of degenerate gamblers and data nerds on X that just learned about the “pizza index” started screenshotting Google Maps activity of DC pizza places as proof that something was afoot. And that’s when the real misinformation began.

Adam Cochran, an “Investor” and “independent investigative journalist,” spun out a long thread on X alleging “the White House is covering up the fact that Donald Trump has been dealing with [Transient Ischemic Attack] strokes.” Liberal influencer Christopher Webb used an AI tool to “enhance” a blurry photo of Trump and used it as proof that something is “happening to his forehead.” And things got even more confusing when the official White House X account decided to share a video on September 1st, titled, “11 LIFE-CHANGING LESSONS!” Which, yes, does look like an in memoriam tribute. Knowing how completely obsessed with X this administration is, it’s possible the team running the account also thought the president was dead and/or was using the hoax to chase engagement. There’s no real functional difference for Republicans, at this point.

And then, to cap everything off, Trump’s team started teasing a big press conference on Tuesday, which he was, hilariously, 45 minutes late for. The president did not use the press conference to announce his own death, however, but, instead, used it to announce he’s moving US Space Command to Alabama, brag about blowing up a boat full of people in Venezuela, and deny that he saw the internet celebrating that he may have died. (He absolutely heard about it, let’s be real.)

What’s so fascinating about the Trump death hoax(?) is that it was not led by right-wing users, like the other big viral frenzies on X this summer, but, instead, it was shared by the shitlibs, normies, and randos that still hang out on the site. Which, depending on how much nostalgia you have for the peak Twitter years, either means that the site still has the juice or that its reality warping effects are bipartisan and, somehow, more powerful than they were pre-Elon Musk takeover. I tend to think it’s the latter and I’d like to offer a theory as to why.

X, even in its anemic state, is still the only social platform left that has all of the pieces necessary to move the cultural needle like this. It’s text-based, which will always be faster and more immediate than a purely video-based platform like TikTok. It still works very well, if not better, on mobile, the dominant way people use the internet now. And, sorry Bluesky, it offers a proximity to power. One somewhat disastrous side effect of Bluesky fostering a militant left-wing community during a Republican administration is that there is, simply, no one on there who really matters. Sure, you can make a bunch of jokes on Bluesky about the president dying, but X is the only place where you have a shot at making one he actually sees. And that’s real influence. Plus, it’s a lot more fun.

A Good Post

An AI That Will Help Humanity Remember And Unlock The Power Each Individual Holds Within Themself So They Can Bring Into Reality Their Unique, Authentic Expression Of Self Without Fear Or Compromise

Nicole Summer Hsing is an AI researcher who just announced that her startup, Arcarae, is receiving $2.5 million in funding. It’s unclear who invested in Arcarae. It’s also unclear what Arcarae is or does. Which is fascinating because Hsing has written a lot of words about it.

According to Hsing’s very long funding announcement on X, “Arcarae’s mission is to help humanity remember and unlock the power each individual holds within themself so they can bring into reality their unique, authentic expression of self without fear or compromise.” She also included a sizzle reel of her kickboxing for some reason.

If you dig through Arcarae’s website, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Hsing basically just built an AI astrology app. And apparently enough people thought that for her to feel the need to actually push back against it in, yet another, very long post on X. “First, Arcarae’s app is not an astrology application,” she wrote. “It is an app that explores a new paradigm of human <> AI interaction through an immersive experience and artistically coded interface.” Which, again, does not really clear anything up about what this app is or does.

The reason any of this is important is that there is a lot of debate right now about whether or not we’re in an AI bubble and, if we are, whether or not that bubble popping will crash the stock market. I’m not an economist, but I’d say that getting millions in funding for an app that does not clearly do, uh, anything is not a good sign. Another not good sign is that Reese Witherspoon is telling the media that women need to “be involved in AI” because it’s the “future of filmmaking.” Witherspoon said the same thing about NFTs in… 2022… uh oh!

4chan Vs. The British Government

Both 4chan and Kiwi Farms have sued the UK’s Office of Communications, or Ofcom, which regulates British media. You can read the opening statement of the lawsuit, which is, honestly, a bit of a barnburner, on X here. Both sites are alleging that the British government, via their new Online Safety Bill, are infringing on their First Amendment rights by requiring age verification. Which it absolutely is.

Instead of just blocking websites — which would likely be both complicated and deeply unpopular — the UK government is threatening service providers and hosts based outside of the country and trying to legally compel them to follow their new law. Wikipedia is sparring with British courts, as well, right now.

I’ve seen some users on X and Bluesky express some uncomfortable feelings about digital free speech being championed by two of the worst websites to ever exist, but it’s a good reminder that a free, open, and anonymous internet also includes content you don’t like and that if you want to push back against that content it’s safer for everyone else’s free speech to combat via other methods. This lawsuit is not so different from Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, a 1988 ruling that lets me publish this newsletter in all its fully realized glory every week lol.

Music Weird Now

NPR published a fascinating piece on the state of music right now, aptly titled, “Love songs are weird right now”. It largely focuses on the unexpected success of artists like Sombr — who is not Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things, it turns out — and Laufey, who is not Clairo, apparently. Both artists make very basic indie-accented pop music, and are both extremely “popular” right now. I put “popular” in scare quotes there because we’re talking about streaming numbers, which as we should all know by now, do not accurately express active interest or desire, but, instead, typically reflect how easy it is for something to help us disassociate in front of our various screens.

But the NPR piece kicked off an even more interesting discussion on Bluesky, where users admitted they had never heard of Sombr and also didn’t really understand what the big deal was about his fairly boilerplate songs. One user wrote, “The Enshittification of popular culture is part of Project 2025.” Which might actually be true! We are definitely in the midst of a right-wing cultural wave right now. Though, I’m a little skeptical that it’s deliberate. American pop culture always tends to flip-flop with the political party in power.

Another idea surfaced on Bluesky is that soft, largely flat-sounding pop music is having a big moment because algorithmic platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify promote it, which I think is closer to the truth. Music that sounds like muzak fits better in long-running playlists, which is better for time-on-site metrics. This is why AI bands keep getting huge streaming numbers.

Though, according to our most recent Spotify data pull, K-Pop is actually, without question, the most popular music on streaming right now. Which actually paints a more interesting picture of what’s happening with music at the moment. It’s either K-Pop or playlist slop, it seems.

You Can Finally Play As A Nintendo Cease And Desist In Super Smash Bros.

Moosh, a modder who recently went viral for a Super Smash Bros. Melee mod that added the joker from Balatro, has a new one out. It lets you play as a Nintendo cease and desist letter, which they are very big fans of sending out to anyone who modifies their games. Definitely worth downloading before they send Patreon a DMCA request!

Orc Kendrick, Fully Realized

Some Stray Links

P.S. here’s kids in the hole.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***