Do you or someone you love use Arc Browser as their “daily driver”?

No? Ok well, do you love getting lost in drama that has nothing to do with you?

Still no? Fine, are you anxious as fuck about the upcoming election (USA)?

Then boy howdy do I have something for you.

First up, a story about Arc Browser. Then a list of juicy recs specifically curated to help keep you distracted and/or expanded enough to get through the next 48 hours or however long this election is still gonna be!!!!

What we talk about when we talk about Arc Browser

Arc Browser came out a couple years ago and, in short, it’s fucking amazing. Personally for me the things it does very well are:

• split view (two pages side by side)

• spaces (allowing you to switch between different ‘spaces,’ that don’t share any logins or cookies or anything, so you can have a ‘life’ space and a ‘work’ space and, as The Offspring said, ‘keep em separated’

• vertical tabs (forget your grandma’s horizontal tabs atop the browser - these tabs live in a lil house to the side of all your shit)

Anyway, its ‘parent’ company, The Browser Company, has raised a buttload of money (58 mills).

People love the browser - they are diehard. They treat it like people around Jesus treated Jesus.

Last week, their CEO Josh announced that they were creating a whole new browser. Arc 2.0! It’d be different and simpler than Arc.

Why? Because Arc 1.0 which everyone loves is a niche product that won’t ever have a large enough user base to make his VC daddies happy?

Maybe! But what’s clear is that people are NOT happy! Take a gander at these comments:

Even your very own Alex Dobrenko got into the mix with a reddit post that’s actually doing pretty well (who cares?)!

Point is, ppl are pissed. And I can’t get enough. I’m drowning in drama. I love it and also I hate it but mostly I need it and that is not good.

wait how does this relate to the election??

Cuz it’s classic internet drama! It is the tech nerd version of whatever the fuck this is:

In “researching” this summary, I found myself on another subreddit for Zen Browser, an open source alternative to Arc that I’ve been playing with and that people really like.

And lookie here at what I found this very morning!

So of course I click in because how could I not, and all a sudden I’m lost DEEP in the back and forth between the person who posted this (u/seulgimonster) and the creator of Zen, who is defending himself against the attacks.

I left in all the screenshots because I bet you’re wrapped up in it too? If not teach me.

Either way, WHY THE HELL DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER????!

And perhaps more importantly, how far away from my reality - someone who currently uses and loves Arc - is all of this? Pretty far! Arc works great right now and probably will for a while, and yet I am mired (mired!) in the muck of this bullshit I do not actually care about.

That, my friends, is American politics for you.

It’s all basically the same - Arc vs. Arc, Arc vs. Zen, Zen vs. u/seulgimonster, Trump v Kamala, Biden v Biden, Kamala v Biden, Trump v reality, Mario v Wario, etc etc etc etc.

I’m not saying it doesn’t matter but I’m also saying it doesn’t matter!! Which is, of course, the definition of anxiety.

Worry. Concern. Preparation (H) . These are all great things that one should do about the election. But we don’t do that. We stew. Brood. Dread.

If anxiety had a mascot, it'd be the next two days in our United States of America.

—

Viktor Frankl has that line I’m p sure he stole from Dave Matthews band about how the space between stimulus and response is where freedom is, ya?

That space has collapsed for us all, but maybe it doesn’t have to? What follows is a curated list of recs that will either

a. help you expand that space

b. fill that space with stuff that is better and kinder for your brain than the scrolling of the doom.

—

Don’t trust the quality of the recs?? Listen to legendaryBAThead E.L. Zeitgeist who has made not one but TWO posts about last week’s book rec:

1. (book name secret) Is KILLING ME right now. For the exact same reasons. From page 1, I wanted to die, but it’s also the best book I’ve read since The Goldfinch so I keep reading. And staring into the sun.

and then:

!!!

Highlights below include:

🧘‍♂️ A 13-minute video that has actually made me think about things differently and keep my heart open yuck

🎭 The secret to being liked (it's not what you think, and it's harder than you want it to be)

🎮 Two addictive games to distract yourself from checking poll numbers every 3 minutes

🎵 The best Tiny Desk concerts to drown out election coverage (one will make you feel things, the other will make you dance)

🤓 Actually helpful anxiety wisdom for surviving the next 48 hours

🌟 A collection of fascinating internet rabbit holes to escape into when you can't take another hot take

💫 BONUS: A weirdly mesmerizing website that, if all else fails, you can just stare at for a while...