the newsletter, every issue.
Nine hundred and thirty-one editions of yap, sat in one place. One long read every friday morning. Always free.
Nine hundred and thirty-one issues.
The refill rebellion: why the old-school sign is going viral
I’m obsessed with this new trend. The perfect antidote to the abundance of ugly AI posters we’re seeing in every local café and retail store at the moment.
The invisible grid: why the internet’s most online generation is ghost posting
Get in babe, we’re prioritising aesthetics over engagement. Ghost posting is the latest new phenomenon, and I can only wonder how far it will spread.
The eighteen-billion-dollar fig leaf: what meta actually bought
The numbers flashing across the financial headlines this week were so big they made my eyes water.
Elon’s xAI sues to stop Minnesota law banning nudification technology, yes, legitimately.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, recently filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Minnesota, and the legal complaint reads like a chilling manifesto on the absolute limits of corporate arrogance.
The weaponised image: how the deepfake epidemic turned on the staffroom
For the past year, the conversation dominating the educational and tech-safety headlines has often been about the way AI-generated pornography fractures the lives of high school students.
The originality strategy: how to create when everyone is exhausted
I feel it, you feel it, we all feel the cognitive paralysis currently blanketing the digital economy.
The progressive witch-hunt: why our critique of influencers is gendered
Ever notice how the twenty minute takedown video always seems to find a woman? Sophie breaks down why picking apart a lifestyle creator gets dressed up as consumer activism, while men doing the exact same thing get called entrepreneurs.
The content leak: why your profile is working harder than your product
Getting views but no bookings? Sophie reckons your content is not the problem, your profile is. She breaks down why the three seconds after someone lands on your page decide whether they trust you or scroll on.
The disposable self: how three-month trends are fracturing youth identity
Sophie argues today's teenagers do not get a stable identity to grow into anymore. Every trend now expires in about ninety days, and she breaks down what that speed is doing to a whole generation's sense of self.
The domesticated human: are we becoming AI's pets?
AI keeps getting sold to us as a handy little tool, nothing to worry about. Sophie makes the case that we are actually behaving more like well trained pets than the ones in charge. The comparison gets uncomfortably specific.
The stan accounts have proliferated the news room
A huge amount of breaking news now reaches people through celebrity gossip pages, not newsrooms. Sophie weighs up the real upside of that shift against the real risk, zero fact checking and zero accountability.
The inbred algorithm and how the web is poisoning its own intelligence
AI is now feeding on its own content, and that is a much bigger problem than it sounds. Sophie breaks down model collapse, the feedback loop where new AI systems get dumber by training on old AI slop. If your work is still genuinely human made, this is the best news you have had all year.