PJH Studios

Category: Pop Culture

Popular culture, culture that seems to spread beyond more than three people

  • FAFOnomics

    Kyla Scanlon coins an apt term for our current economic state–FAFOnomics. Fuck Around, Find Out.

    Yes, America needs change. But change without wisdom isn’t reform, it’s recklessness.

    And of course, there is an important point to all of this, which is that it is all noise. It’s what Tyler Cowen and Ezra Klein have both pointed out as strategic chaos: overwhelming the public’s already limited capacity for attention until exhaustion sets in. It’s the attention singularity that I wrote about last week in action, where power, narrative, and wealth merge into a self-reinforcing system of perpetual disruption.

    Welcome to FAFAnomics – F*ck Around and Find Out Economics, something that feels like the policy equivalent of a TikTok influencer doing increasingly dangerous stunts off the side of a building for views. The goal isn’t good governance; it’s capturing attention at any cost. And it’s working! While we debate whether each new crisis is legal, ethical, or even real1(as we should) the broader transformation of American fiscal policy continues.

  • Kevin Kelly’s travel tips

    Kevin Kelly has listed 50 travel tips. Here are a few interesting ones:

    If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.

    The rate you go is not determined by how fast you walk, bike or drive, but by how long your breaks are. Slow down. Take lots of breaks. The most memorable moments—conversations with amazing strangers, an invite inside, a hidden artwork—will usually happen when you are not moving.

    Even if you never go to McDonalds at home, visit the McDonalds on your travels. Surprisingly, their menus are very localized and reflect different cuisines in a fun and easy way, with unexpected versions of familiar things. Very illuminating!

  • Hockey hair

    Apparently hockey hair is a thing in Minnesota. So much so, it garners its own highlight reel.

  • Magnet Chess

    Magnet Chess is an addictive web game where you drop different size and strength magnetic on to a board. You attempt to dispose of your pieces within 15 seconds without causing two or more pieces from connecting. First person to get rid of all their pieces wins or the first person to reach zero (0) loses.

    As you level up, you receive different shaped pieces and differ board configurations that drive different strategies for placement.

    magnet chess board web game

  • Forever March 2020

    Five years ago, the onset of Covid cracked a schism in time. CNN goes long, detailing stories of iconic photos from those early days.

  • Wikiportraits

    The Wikimedia foundation is enlisting volunteer photographers to update headshots of celebrities and public figures

    “ No professional photographers ever have their photos on Wikipedia, because they want to make money from the photos,” said Jay Dixit, a writing professor and amateur Wikipedia photographer. “It’s actually the norm that most celebrities have poor photos on Wikipedia, if they have photos at all. It’s just some civilian at an airport being like, ‘Oh my god, it’s Pete Davidson,’ click with an iPhone.”

    Dixit is part of a team of volunteer photographers, called WikiPortraits, that’s trying to fix that problem. 

  • Princesses Over 40 Publishing House

    Life hits different after 40, even for princesses. Edith Zimmerman illustrates the covers, such as Silver Linings: Embracing Your Naturally Aging Hair by Rapunzel.

  • A School District Rejected a Black Author’s Book About Tulsa for Its Curriculum. Then the Community Decided to Act

    From Phil Lewis: A School District Rejected a Black Author’s Book About Tulsa for Its Curriculum. Then the Community Decided to Act

    After the school board voted against adding Pink’s book to the Pine-Richland School District’s ninth-grade curriculum, the community decided it was time to act.

    Macmillan, the publisher of “Angel of Greenwood,” sent Pine-Richland students 100 copies of the book to distribute to the community. Pink also traveled from her small town outside of Birmingham, Alabama, to come to Richland to meet with the community that had so fiercely supported her work.

    “The supporters in the community were relentless in making sure I got there. Some people put in $5, $10, even $600. I waived my fee, but the community said, ‘Absolutely not. We’re going to pay you.’ I’m a single mother, so I had to bring my babies with me,” she said. “They said, ‘we’re going to pay for all your way.’

    We need more communities to push back on book bans.

  • The Biggest Live Game of ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Ever Played

    Dimension 20 is a show where Dungeons and Dragons plays out for an audience in real time. They recently sold out Madison Square Garden.

    t’s a frosty January night in New York City, but Madison Square Garden is red hot. You feel the heat when pillars of flame spit out from black butane tanks that encircle a half-domed stage. The thunder of swag rock is drowned out by the dog-whistle cheers of 20,000 people alive with electricity. Under the tiled roof where Knicks and Rangers banners hang, between walls that often echo with Billy Joel and Taylor Swift, an epic game of Dungeons & Dragons played by Dimension 20 is about to get rolling.

  • Quordle

    Merriam Webster hosts their own Wordle clone, Quordle. The usual Wordle rules apply, but solve for 4 words at once in 9 attempts. Those first two or three guesses are key to knowing what vowels and common consonants you’re working with. As you can see, I didn’t solve this one. *sad trombone noises*