Mediaboss Marketing

Younger workers in China are questioning the benefits of the daily grind as they face worsening prospects. The rise of "Sang culture" embodies the frustration and soul-crushing weariness. Sarah Gonzales for NPR hide caption

Younger workers in China are questioning the benefits of the daily grind as they face worsening prospects. The rise of "Sang culture" embodies the frustration and soul-crushing weariness.

This story is adapted from the latest episode of Rough Translation. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or NPR One.

About four years ago in Beijing, a colleague dragged me out from behind my computer, where I had been laboring as a cub reporter.

She wanted to show me a trendy new bubble tea shop called Sung Tea, which celebrates the nihilistic attitude of China's post-'80s generation with fatalistically named drinks names such as "Work Overtime with No Hope of a Pay Raise Green Tea" (perhaps too on the nose that day) and "My Ex Is Doing Better Than Me Black Tea."

The brand is a pun on the Chinese character Sang, which literally means "mourning." Sang has taken on a multitude of new meanings in China, which has been ground down by successive lockdowns meant to contain the coronavirus as well as growing regulatory controls that have clamped down on businesses, especially in the internet sector.

Sang's rise is exceptional, because China is a country that loves to work. Grinding out a "996" schedule 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week can be a point of pride. And it has paid off: During China's economic boom years through the 1990s and early 2000s, many Chinese reaped the financial gains of entrepreneurial hard work.

But attitudes toward work are changing.

Just as in the United States, people born after the 1980s in China are facing the prospect of worse outcomes than their parents. Property prices rise beyond their reach; college graduates have to compete over limited jobs; and a gender imbalance favoring males made worse by decades of the one-child policy puts marriage out of reach for poorer men. Hard work no longer seems to be worth it.

The soul-crushing weariness these conditions produce can be embodied in the single Chinese character, Sang. And once I learned about Sang, it became impossible not to see it popping up everywhere in mainstream Chinese culture, and not just in my daily cup of boba.

"Sang culture" is a popular shorthand for both a melancholic listlessness at the futility of one's current state of affairs and a bleak acceptance that life will be no better.

Here are several ways Sang culture is expressed in China:

Sang culture-like threads of frustration have abounded in Chinese pop culture. Online, people share popular memes such as "Ge You Slouch" a screenshot of a famous actor from a well-loved '90s sitcom slouched hopelessly on a couch in chat groups and social media forums to express apathy.

Some of Sang's manifestations are cross-cultural, in unexpected ways: Pepe the Frog, a cartoon that has become a symbol of American far-right groups, has taken on a new life in China, where the green amphibian is toted around by Sang advocates. For whatever reason Sang people in China think Pepe looks Sang haggard and worn down.

Li Xueqin, an irreverent, tough-talking comedian who graduated from one of China's most prestigious universities, has gained a cult following for subverting cultural expectations of women and academic high achievers. She has earned a place in the Sang community with her brand of self-deprecating jokes about the stress of work life, dating, and parental pressures.

And the American television show BoJack Horseman has accrued a surprise cult following in China, where viewers say they relate to the self-destructive, animated equine that is the show's main character.

A host of independent record labels specialize in low-energy, lyrical music that can be the perfect soundtrack to your best Sang life.

One crowd favorite is indie band Trip Fuel, which has built up a devoted following across mainland China of other aimless, disillusioned millennials.

"Our generation has such anxieties: to change our social classes and to struggle to live a better life, but at the same time, we still have this utopian idealism that is difficult to balance," says Xiaozhou, the band's bassist.

At one recent Trip Fuel performance in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen where many millennials work demanding tech startup jobs many of their fans were so exhausted that they napped through parts of the concert.

The lead singer goes by Manager Chen, which is both his stage name and his day job. He works at a bank. At the end of the show, he thanked the crowd of fans and his boss, who gave him the weekend off so Chen would make it to his own concert. It was back to work for the rocker by night, bank employee by day on the following Sunday morning.

Adherents of Sang culture can draw on a cohort of other terms that have entered the parlance of modern Mandarin Chinese. Jumping through the hoops of modern Chinese society is often dubbed neijuan. And there is "involution," meaning a race-to-the-bottom culture of overwork brought on by shrinking resources in a populous country.

In the Exhausted Man video game, players must manipulate a limp, snoozing office worker into completing deceptively simple tasks by slithering his exhausted body across the room. Candleman Games hide caption

In the Exhausted Man video game, players must manipulate a limp, snoozing office worker into completing deceptively simple tasks by slithering his exhausted body across the room.

Burned-out video game players can find an outlet in Exhausted Man, a strangely soothing game in which players must manipulate a limp, snoozing office worker into completing deceptively simple tasks such as turning off the lights or slithering his exhausted body across his room to get a cup of coffee.

"So many players say my game is exactly what their daily lives are like," says Gao Ming, the Beijing-based designer behind the video game, which plays on themes of tangping and Sang. "If that is the case, then why do they keep playing the game? Because by highlighting the absurdist nature of your exhausting lifestyle, the game lets you separate yourself from the day-in, day-out routine."

Actually, playing video games can be kind of productive, says Gao. He hopes players of Exhausted Man might reflect on the connections between the game and their own lifestyles and find the motivation to change their lives if the two are too similar.

You can also tangping, or lie flat in China: a lifestyle of extreme lethargy trumpeted as a form of social protest against overwork and unrealistic expectations.

It is the natural reflex for people exhausted by the extreme competitiveness of China's education system, facing mounting economic pressures, or fed up with the political posturing of an increasingly ideological political system.

Serial thief Zhou Liqi, featured in our Rough Translation episode, becomes an unlikely poster child for this form of hardcore chilling. In 2012, he was arrested for the second time for nabbing e-bikes, and he gave a jailhouse interview that somehow captures the hearts and minds of white and blue collar workers across China: "I can never work in this life," he says with a rueful smile. That's why he has to survive by stealing.

By the time he got out of prison for the last time, in 2020, Zhou had become an internet sensation.

Others are unwilling mascots of Sang culture. Last year, a Russian contestant who was cast on a Chinese reality TV show found himself trapped on the show: Viewers were so enchanted with his lack of motivation, they kept voting to keep him on week after week.

The contestant, who goes by the name Lelush, appears to have warmed up to the idea of stardom and of Sang. On his Instagram, Lelush regularly models loungewear and luxury pajamas: the perfect outfits for a discerning person who just wants to lie flat.

Continue reading here:
Young workers in China are changing their attitude toward work : Goats and Soda - NPR

This morning's situation report from the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) offers an account of the senior Russian officers who've either been sacked or are on the hot seat over combat failure in Ukraine:

"In recent weeks, Russia has fired senior commanders who are considered to have performed poorly during the opening stages of its invasion of Ukraine. Lieutenant General Serhiy Kisel, who commanded the elite 1st Guards Tank Army, has been suspended for his failure to capture Kharkiv. Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, who commanded Russias Black Sea Fleet, has also likely been suspended following the sinking of the cruiser Moskva in April. Russian Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov likely remains in post, but it is unclear whether he retains the confidence of President Putin. A culture of cover-ups and scape-goating is probably prevalent within the Russian military and security system. Many officials involved in the invasion of Ukraine will likely be increasingly distracted by efforts to avoid personal culpability for Russias operational set-backs. This will likely place further strain on Russia's centralised model of command and control, as officers increasingly seek to defer key decisions to their superiors. It will be difficult for Russia to regain the initiative under these conditions."

These firings are in addition to the earlier purge of the FSB, blamed by President Putin for intelligence failures prior to the invasion. The MoD's current situation map shows stagnation in the Donbas and along the Azov coast.

Mandiant this morning published an overview of the Russian information operations it's tracked during the run-up to Russia's war against Ukraine, through the actual invasion, and continuing until now. Senior Analyst Alden Wahlstrom, one of lead authors of this report, said that the research sought to exhibit "how known actors and campaigns can be leveraged or otherwise refocused to support emerging security interests, including large-scale conflict. For years, analysts have documented that Ukraine, a key strategic interest of Russia's, is a testing ground for Russian cyber threat activity that they may subsequently deploy elsewhere.Now,we witnesshow pro-Russia actors have leveraged the assets and campaign infrastructure developed over time (in whole or part) to target Ukraine.

The operations exhibit a mixture of disinformation and disruptive attacks (mostly ransomware, wiper malware disguised as ransomware, and nuisance-level distributed denial-of-service attacks). Defacement of Ukrainian government websites began as early as January 14th of this year, with messages claiming theft and subsequent deletion of data. "The defacements likely coincided with the January deployment of destructive tools PAYWIPE, an MBR wiper disguised as ransomware, and the SHADYLOOK file corrupter against Ukrainian government and other targets." February 23rd, the eve of the invasion proper, saw a repetition of this style of attack. In this case the defacements "coincided with destructive attacks against Ukrainian government targets using the NEARMISS master boot record (MBR) wiper and PARTYTICKET wiper disguised as ransomware." And during the war itself, on March 16th a deepfake video of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy appearing to announce surrender to Russia was distributed over compromised Ukrainian news sites. This incident coincided with another wiper attack: "On the same day, Mandiant identified the JUNKMAIL wiper targeting a Ukrainian organization. The malware was configured via a scheduled task to execute approximately three hours before Zelenskyy was scheduled to deliver a speech to the U.S. Congress."

Some familiar threat actors have been in evidence. APT28 (Fancy Bear, the GRU) has been behind much of the Russian activity, and the allied Ghostwriter operators of Belarus's satellite intelligence and security services have also been active in the Russian interest. The Internet Research Agency, well-known as an election-meddling troll farm, seems also to have resurfaced as "Kiber [that is, Cyber] Force Z," and resumed influence and amplification operations. And there have been the usual covert media outlets working under inauthentic personae. Kiber Force Z's style is as familiar as it is tasteless, featuring a Russian-uniformed Pepe the Frog (an Orthodox cross blasphemously around his neck, a "Z" patch in the place of honor on his left shoulder) calling in an airstrike on Azovstal, occupied by three Azov Battalion soldiers with pig faces. (The Azov boys look better uniformed and equipped than comrade soldier Pepe, who seems a bit slack and devil-may-care in his turnout. Maybe Kiber Force Z realized that President Zelenskyy's casual kit played better than President Putin's expensive clothes, long tables and Ruritanian guards.)

There's also been some nominally hacktivist activity conducted in support of Russia. "Established hacktivist personas JokerDNR and Beregini have remained active in their targeting of Ukraine in the leadup to and since Russias invasion, including through their publication of allegedly leaked documents featuring possible personally identifiable information (PII) of Ukrainian military members.," Mandiant notes, and goes on to observe cautiously, "Additionally, newly established 'hacktivist' groups, whose degrees of affiliation to the Russian state are yet unknown,like Killnet, Xaknet, and RahDit, have engaged in hacktivist-style threat activity in support of Russia, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, hack-and-leak operations, and defacements." There is, we think, a strong likelihood that these hacktivist personae are operating under the control or at least direction of Moscow's intelligence services.

Russian disinformation has had two sides. One, for foreign consumption, has been in the familiar, tabloidesque, entropic style, intended to darken counsel more than to persuade, that's been a staple of Russian election meddling for the past decade. This line has featured such claims as the discovery of US biowar labs in Ukraine, Poland's systematic harvesting of Ukrainian refugees' organs for sale on the transplant black market, etc. The other has been aimed primarily at domestic audiences, and has emphasized the foreign threat to Russia, Ukrainian atrocities against ethnic Russian enclaves, and, above all, the alleged Nazi cabal that's got to be running Kyiv. These lines of disinformation have been intended to persuade.

The report concludes by offering its take on the outlook for influence campaigns aligned with Russian goals. Russian operators can be expected to continue to push disinformation, with a probable assist from their satellite services in Belarus. China and Iran serve as allies of convenience, retailing Russian themes when it serves those regimes' longstanding anti-Western strategic goals:

"Information operations observed in the context of Russias invasion of Ukraine have exhibited both tactical aims responding to, or seeking to shape, events on the ground and strategic objectives attempting to influence the shifting geopolitical landscape. While these operations have presented an outsized threat to Ukraine, they have also threatened the U.S. and other Western countries. As a result, we anticipate that such operations, including those involving cyber threat activity and potentially other disruptive and destructive attacks, will continue as the conflict progresses.

"One notable feature of operations attributed to known actors thus far is their apparent consistency with the respective campaigns established motives. Russia-aligned operations, including those attributed to Russian, Belarusian, and pro-Russia actors, have thus far employed the widest array of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to support tactical and strategic objectives, directly linked to the conflict itself. This is especially beneficial when the facts on the ground shape Russias need to influence events in Ukraine, marshal domestic Russian support, and manage global perceptions of Russias actions. Meanwhile, pro-PRC and pro-Iran campaigns have leveraged the Russian invasion opportunistically to further progress long-held strategic objectives. We likewise expect this dynamic to continue, and are actively monitoring for expansions in their scope of information operations activity surrounding the conflict."

NATO's national coordinators for cybersecurity met yesterday in Brussels, the Hill reports, the first time such a group has convened. The meeting was prompted by the Russian war against Ukraine, and the ways in which it's altered the strategic landscape. "Allies have expressed concern that cyber threats to the security of the Alliance are complex, destructive, coercive, and becoming ever more frequent," a NATO press release said. "NATO is a strong platform to share information, to exchange national approaches and responses, as well as to consider possible collective responses. Allies are also providing practical support to partners, including Ukraine."

Or words to that effect. Hacktivists looking for ways of throwing sand in the gears of Russian governance have established a website (WasteRussianTime.Today, according to Wired's story) where, if you're of like mind, you can place robot calls that connect a couple of Kremlin apparatchiki while you listen in as they try to figure out who called whom. The technology the hacktivist group (which calls itself the "Obfuscated Dreams of Scheherazade") uses is first cousin to that employed by the people who call you about extending your car warranty, or getting credit card interest relief.

This war started inside Moscow and St. Petersburg, within the power circle of Putin, and thats who we want to annoy and disturb, Wired quotes one of the service's organizers as explaining. So the effort is meant to be irritating, and no doubt it is, but these aren't prank calls in the classical genre, like calling the local smoke shop, inquiring whether they've got Prince Albert in a can, and then saying, "well, you better let him out," or like asking the bartender to page Amanda Huggenkiss. The organizers decided against facilitating such direct interaction (too dangerous to the participants, who might inadvertently reveal their identity or location). What they did instead was to set up a program that would initiate "a VoIP call, automatically dialing 40 of the leaked [Kremlin] phone numbers, and merging the user into a three-way call with the first two Russian officials' phones that connect."

We're of two minds on this. On the one hand, it's difficult to summon much sympathy for robocalling or even hacktivism in general, which have typically been marked by poor control, bad aim, and unintended effects. When Wired tried out the service, they found there were some difficulties connecting two Russian parties. Apparently there are latency issues, which the Obfuscated Dreams of Scheherazade are working on. There are also sources-and-methods issues. Christo Grozev, of Bellingcat, and no stranger himself to prank calls, explained this particular downside to Wired. Whenever something like this becomes public, the whole department changes their numbers, and that's not good for investigations, including journalistic investigations.

On the other hand it's difficult not to appreciate what the Obfuscated Dreams of Scheherazade are doing, at least as conceptual art. So, for your consideration, a thought experiment: what if the prank calls weren't placed by various outraged randos, but by, say, US Cyber Command, known to many as a pretty low-latency outfit. We're fairly sure there must be some Title 10 authority for ordering two-dozen anchovy pizzas for delivery to the Russian President's office. If, that is, you can still get a pizza in Moscow. So we say, Rear Admiral (retired) John ("Jack") Mehoff, call Fort Meade. America has need of you in this hour. (And, General Nakasone, you're welcome.)

Here is the original post:
Ukraine at D+84: Five months of cyber and info ops. - The CyberWire

In January 2021, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez took to Twitter to declare his city the new cryptocurrency mecca. The City of Miami believes in #Bitcoin, he tweeted, and Im working day and night to turn Miami into a hub for crypto innovation.

Those werent just empty words: That same year, Suarez launched MiamiCoin, a crypto coin for the city that generated $5 million for the city since its launch. And with no state income tax and a corporate tax rate of just 5.5%, it wasnt hard to see the appeal a place thats nicknamed The Magic City might have to a still-fledgeling industry that is sometimes itself accused of magical thinking. And its sort of working: For instance, crypto giant Blockchain.com left New York City and leased a massive office in the city earlier this year.

There is an incentive for any place to be the hot new place, economist Jodi Beggs told Fast Company. If, for no other reason, then your branding city is associated with a hot new thing. And, honestly, thats kind of Miamis jam, right?

Earlier this month, at a kick-off event for Bitcoin 2022, the worlds largest Bitcoin convention thats held in Miami, Suarez was at it again. Proudly posing in front of the citys prized new art piece, a 3,000-pound statue of an android-esque bull that the Miami Herald astutely pointed out looks like a giant Transformer, the mayor exclaimed that we need to integrate Bitcoin into every aspect of our society.

But if the current state of Miamis Bitcoin integration is any indication of what a crypto city might look like, its safe to say both the concept and the city have a long way to go.

Beggs, who has previous experience in the crypto analytics space, grew up outside the city and is very familiar with the Miami ethos that has begun attracting interest from the crypto world.

There was already somewhat of a culture of, hey, were going to go do our somewhat non-traditional finance activity where the weathers nice. And I think that the finance players taking their Bitcoin business to Miami is completely within that same, she says.

Miamis flirtations with the crypto business is noticeable everywhere you look. Immediately upon entering the city from the airport, youre greeted with billboards advertising NFT lines; its not uncommon to see a Bitcoin ATM next to a regular one while driving around the city. (Beggs says that the idea of a Bitcoin ATM doesnt even make sense: The whole point of crypto is that you dont need any ATMs.)

The reality of Miamis blockchain-centric ambitions, though, doesnt live up to the hype radiating from Suarezs tweets. Miami is fifth in the country for crypto investment, according to Bloomberg. San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Albany all outrank it in terms of money generated from crypto investment deals. Also, the vaunted MiamiCoin has seen poor returns for early adopters. According to CoinMarketCap, the coin peaked at $0.05 last September. Its currently hovering around $0.002, which makes its future feel hazy at best. (Mayor Suarezs office did not respond to a request for comment.)

Making matters worse, this years Bitcoin 2022 wasnt the slam dunk that many seemed to expect it to be. The convention had a lukewarm reception among some of Bitcoins biggest diehards. Mr. Whale, a cryptocurrency-tracking Twitter account with half a million followers, declared the event a complete failure. Not only were over 70% of the seats empty, but many big guests like [El Salvadors President] Nayib Bukele didnt even show up, Mr. Whale tweeted. Bitcoin is tanking, and many attendees have left very disappointed.

And Mr. Whale wasnt alone in the post-convention Bitcoin malaise. [I] dont think I can do another crypto conference for a few months, love meeting people and re-connecting with friends and partners, but it feels incredibly unproductive to have so many events all the time, Meltem Demirors, the chief strategy officer for CoinShares, tweeted over the weekend.

But there are larger issues here: A city trying to adopt Bitcoin institutionally is arguably antithetical to the very nature of cryptocurrency, where the appeal is that its not tied to any specific government. Another issue for a crypto city is that no one wants to spend their Bitcoin.

If your expectation is that your cryptocurrency is earning a return and youre using it as a speculative vehicle, youre not gonna buy [anything with it], Beggs says.

Sure enough, there wasnt much Bitcoin being spent at the Bitcoin 2022 convention. The bars, food trucks, and cafes all took credit or debit cards only. Which, of course, might not be totally surprising, considering a popular meme within the Bitcoin community is that cash is for spending, Bitcoin is for holding.

Toward the back of the convention hall, in a small bazaar tucked in the corner, people sold Bitcoin-themed art (and one person offering real, permanent Pepe the Frog tattoos) there were some satsor fractions of a Bitcoinbeing sent back and forth between vendors and customers. One artist at the convention, Susan Van Volkenburg, saysthat she had sold a few of her pieces in Bitcoin. Her pictures, which werent NFTs but rather physical paintings that paid tribute to Bitcoin (and glowed in the dark) are part of a project calls Essence Of Bitcoin. Ive had one cash sale. One Visa. Everything else has been Bitcoin, she says.

Van Volkenburg, who got into Bitcoin in 2017 and comes to Miami for Bitcoin events, says shes extremely optimistic about the Miami mayors crypto initiatives. I think the mayor of Miami is all about it, she says. I think Miami is going to be all about it. She says that she had not used Bitcoin to buy anything while staying in Miami, however.

If one wanted to find an actual use for their Bitcoin, there are a few restaurants around the city that accept it, the most notable being Bitcoin Pizza, a chain with several locations in Miami. But a Google search for Bitcoin in Miami mostly pulls up Bitcoin ATMs, which are scattered all over. Though actually finding one of the machines can be almost impossibly difficult.

On Miami Beach, heading south from where Suarez installed the Miami Bull, there were four working Bitcoin ATMs. The machines were tucked in mini-marts and check-cashing centers along Washington Avenue. Finding them is hard, but using them is even trickier.

All four ATMs on Washington Avenue required a special account and corresponding crypto wallet that matched the ATM you wanted to use. Which meant you would have to transfer your Bitcoin from the wallet you used to a new wallet before being able to buy or sell anything. Also, the majority of the ATMs didnt actually contain any cash, meaning if you did have the account and wallet needed to activate the ATM, all you could do with it is buy Bitcoin, which is something you can easily do with most crypto trading apps.

Victor, a man working behind the counter of one of the mini-marts on Washington Avenue that had a Bitcoin ATM in it, told Fast Company that it took a little while for people to start using the machine in his store, but its now around 20-30 people a week.

Theres a guy that comes from [mainland Miami] once a week and uses it, but I tell him to call the store first, Victor says. Because what happens is, when the machine gets full of money, it goes into a non-use mode. It looks like, you know, The Matrix, with zeros and ones.

Washington Avenues stretch of Bitcoin ATMs isnt in the true heart of the citys crypto boom, though. Wynwood, across the water from the neon flash of Miami Beach, is the part of the city that feels the most San Francisco-fied, complete with Lime scooters and block after block of warehouse-cum-beer gardens. All over the neighborhood, the former industrial center is being turned into Silli-coin Valley. It boasts a selfie museum, a nonprofit called Crypto Corridor, and the Blockchain Institute of Technology. But it was, one again, hard to find anyone actually engaging with Bitcoin there.

Two people working at a vape store pop-up in an open-air shopping area called Wynwood Marketplace told Fast Company they had never seen anyone ask about trying to use Bitcoin, but did say it sounded like a fun thing they could accept one day.

Google Maps lists one Bitcoin ATM near a corner on 23rd street in Wynwood and includes a picture of a store called Lucky Records in its Google listing. Though, when asked about whether or not a Bitcoin ATM was inside the premises, a man working behind the counter told Fast Company, Nah, mantheres none of that gimmicky shit here.

In fact, beyond Suarezs made-for-Twitter Bitcoin optimism, there seems to be an overwhelming kind of annoyed ambivalence from the people who actually have to live and work in Miami in between the citys endless crypto conferencesof which there are many. There are at least 15 more big crypto events in the Miami area between now and June.

A Miami Beach resident named Nicole living near the convention center housing Bitcoin 2022 last week wasnt shy about how much she disliked the citys blockchain-based transformation over the last year.

Its growing too fast right now, she told Fast Company as she walked by the convention center. And its not good because the people that live here, we are used to a certain lifestyle and all of a sudden we become California. No bueno.

She says that she thinks Suarez is pushing Bitcoin because he invests heavily in it, not because of any particular desire to see decentralized currency flourish. As of last November, Suarez said that he will receive his entire $97,000 salary in Bitcoin, though that isnt his only source of income. He also works as a lawyer.

[Crypto investors] are too full of themselves, Nicole says. They think theyre better because they have that technology and they can pay with something like its in the air. Im old fashioned, I believe in cash. So I dont believe in something that comes and goes and can disappear in seconds. Its gambling.

Link:
Miami is still far from being the Bitcoin capital of America - Fast Company

Brought to you by:

Elon Musk recently found some spare change in his jeans pocket and decided to buy 9.2% of Twitter. Like a loving father, Musk is helping Twitter get back on the right path. Way to go, Elon!

Here are a few of the epic changes coming to Twitter as a result:

1) A warning label will be placed on all tweets that aren't basedenough: The label will also be placed on memes that are insufficiently dank.

2) You can now choose from one of three avatarsMusk, Doge, and Pepe the Frog:This is all you need.

3) All tweets will freeze at 420 likes and 69 retweets: Nice.

4) Donald Trump will be allowed back in exchange for removing porn, terrorists, and genocidal leaders: Seems reasonable.

5) Sharing the New York Post story about Hunter's laptop is now mandatory:At least once per day. It's only fair.

6) Tweets from AOC will automatically be translated into English:We've been waiting for this feature forever!

7) The Babylon Bee will be placed in charge of all fact-checking:They are themost factual and infallible site in the world.

8) Jack Dorsey will be required to tweet "Censoring conservatives makes me an enemy of freedom" 100 times: Get writing, mister!

9) Anyone who doesn't like the changes will be offered the chance to leave and start their own social network:Conservatives are currently practicing their "smug" faces in the mirror for when they get a chance to say this.

NOT SATIRE: While Twitter's newest stakeholderfigures out the future of the social media site, subscribe to Dad Saves America to figure out the future of our kids and country.

Dad Saves America is a new channel that is on a mission to celebrate, empower, and entertain Dads, could-be Dads, and father figures of all stripes.

We deliver powerful stories, exclusive interviews, mini-documentaries, and deep dives on a weekly basis to inform and inspire as we build a movement of dads who embrace their heroic calling. Dads need their own superhero league to take on the challenges of today.

Subscribe to the Dad Saves America YouTube channel and check out our latest videos by clicking below.

Read the original:
The Dumpster Fire Is Saved: 9 Positive Changes Coming To Twitter - The Babylon Bee

Halston Thayer thought he'd made a wise investment when he paid over a half-million dollars for an absolutely magnificent illustration of a nude Pepe the Frog bathing in a pond. After all, a one-of-a-kind Pepe NFT had recently sold at Sotheby's for $3.6 million

Pepe's creator Matt Furie, who issued the bathing Pepe NFT, implied in his advertisement for the sale that the NFT would be the only one sold through Furie's PegzDAO: "500 cards issued, 400burned, 99 will remain in the PegzDAO, and ONE is being auctioned here."

After Thayer bought the NFT, though, Furie allegedly gave away 46 identical cards for free. Now Thayer is suing Matt Furie and PegzDAO for "unfair, deceptive, untrue, and misleading advertising and wrongful actions."

The lawsuit claims that shortly after Thayer paid $537,084 (150 ETH) for the "rare Pepe" and "unique asset," Furie "released 46 of the 99 remaining Pepe NFTs, significantly devaluing Plaintiff's Pepe NFT to less than $30,000.00, hundreds of thousands of dollars less than what he paid for this purportedly 'unique asset.' Upon information and belief, those 46 NFTs were given away for free."

Furie hasn't commented about the lawsuit on Twitter but continues to advertise Pepe-themed NFTs there.

Read the original:
Gentleman who paid $537,084 for a Pepe the Frog NFT files ...