Sorry this one is late. I was “enjoying time with family” :(

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again… time to bust out ye olde random thoughts and force them upon the masses in a manner so gut-busting and insightful it will have you reeling and spinning.

Low Lift Ask

The Cruft of 2021

Hey, I did this last year (see below). Let’s just do it again, right? On 8-Syllable Pranksters There are two guys out there. One is named Tomasso Debenedetti. The other is named Roniah Tuiasosopo. They are both known for falsely claiming that people have died. They both have three syllables in their first name and five in their last. I posit that this isn…

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a year ago · Ritam Mehta

On Hypocrisy

All the stuff that I make fun of is also true of me. Not sure what to do with this info… my preferred targets in this newsletter are hyper earnest Indian-American yuppies working in tech. 🪞🤡 Perhaps some deep recognition of the interior world of these people gives me license to roast them mercilessly—the strange sense of constantly being left behind, the desparate clawing for relevance, the sense that the way you talk with your friends and at work is this mask that’s just been painted over a weird nerdy kid who goes home and eats crushed up tortilla chips smashed into a bowl of salsa with his hands while watching Arthur.

On Arthur

It’s time to come clean—somewhere, deep down, in the core of my soul, lives Arthur. It’s entirely a product of time spent together. Growing up, I only had PBS Kids, and I would watch Arthur every day until I was far too old to be doing so. As a result, the aardvark is permanently lodged in my brain chemistry as some sort of core. I posit that this is true for many people that grew up at the same time as me, especially those without cable. If this is you, think deeply. Ruminate upon this. Really, deep down, in your heart, don’t you feel a little bit like Arthur?

On the Japandinavian Thing

Why the hell am I so into “Japanese” and “Scandinavian” aesthetic? Sleek, clean bullshit… I mean, I like the other stuff too, I like the maximalist thing, but I find myself consistently drawn back to like, rice paper shades and perfectly sanded pine. I’m trying to figure out whether or not I’ve been subconsciously trained to like this or if there’s some inherent quality to the minimalism and cleanliness that my entire social class is drawn to. Maybe it’s the fact that we don’t have to express our personality and therefore don’t have to open ourselves up the hammer of judgment.

On working in a place with a loud AC

When it turns off, it’s like a huge weight is removed from everyone in the room. Nothing better than when a background noise goes away and you realize it was there in the first place. Yep.

Nabeel’s Footnote

Pretty wild how late this one is, huh? It’s almost like it’s not just me every time. Other people can make mistakes, too. See?