If I am to sum up the feeling of being online in October 2024, I’d do so with this article:
The article focuses on the real-world impact of hurricane conspiracy theories and AI-generated slop, but speaks to a trend that’s much broader than two twin natural disasters.
It is difficult to capture the nihilism of the current moment. The pandemic saw Americans, distrustful of authority, trying to discredit effective vaccines, spreading conspiracy theories, and attacking public-health officials. But what feels novel in the aftermath of this month’s hurricanes is how the people doing the lying aren’t even trying to hide the provenance of their bullshit. Similarly, those sharing the lies are happy to admit that they do not care whether what they’re pushing is real or not. Such was the case last week, when Republican politicians shared an AI-generated viral image of a little girl holding a puppy while supposedly fleeing Helene. Though the image was clearly fake and quickly debunked, some politicians remained defiant. “Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter,” Amy Kremer, who represents Georgia on the Republican National Committee, wrote after sharing the fake image. “I’m leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now.”
When he’s not spreading lies about hurricane relief, former President Trump is spouting increasingly authoritarian and violent rhetoric in the waning days of his campaign.
Trump’s message in Aurora, a city that has become a central part of his campaign speeches in the final stretch to Election Day, marks another example of how the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. The supposed threat migrants pose is the core part of the former president’s closing argument, as he promises his base that he’s the one who can save the country from a group of people he calls “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people,” and the “enemy from within.”
He repeated the “enemy from within” line when interviewed by Maria Bartiromo.
On the other side of the aisle, it’s mid-October, so right on cue, people are freaking out about the polls. This anxiety is manifesting in sharp criticism of Harris campaign’s continuing embrace of bipartisanship, accelerated by this announcement.
On the other hand:
Indeed, poll averages suggest that while this race is still within the margin of error, nothing has shifted for the worse for Democrats.
But beyond being anything from a potential to genuine risk for the Harris candidacy, Israel’s assault on Gaza picked up intensity over the weekend, resulting in some of the most disturbing and memorable images of this now year-long war.
⚠️ Quick warning that I’ve limited this section to one image, plus a somewhat zoomed out video. I had planned to only link to any photos but not including anything seemed disingenuous to the experience of being online right now.
On Sunday, the New York Times print edition published its interviews with health care workers in Gaza, published online earlier in the week.
Later on Sunday, reports and videos emerged of Israel’s bombing of Al Aqsa Hospital as well as a UN camp.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN showed no remorse for the attacks in his response to Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Twitter:
This has been a relentlessly bleak TOTI, so I will end with TOTI’s version of a light-hearted palette cleanser, the closest thing we have to a real-life romcom.
Andrew Garfield and Chicken Shop Date‘s Amelia Dimoldenberg have had two flirty red carpet interviews in the last year and a half, prompting everybody to wonder when he would finally appear on her show.
At long last:
Manifesting Kamala Harris on Hot Ones just as I manifested this.
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