Are you high agency?

+ FYPcore, high-end meat sticks, the NFL's fashion editor, armpit fetishism, content house algospeak, and Musk's own Mar-a-Lago

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Tech's hot new buzzword

I love following the evolution of language, and Business Insider just published a great piece on a new phrase that has taken over Silicon Valley. People in tech used to call themselves "self-starters," then the term "disruptor" came into vogue. Now, everyone is claiming that they’re "high agency."

From Business Insider:

Over the past year, high agency has become the aspirational character trait of Silicon Valley. Early last year, the analytics site Brandwatch found there was a 500% jump in mentions of the phrase across X, Reddit, and other social media sites.

Not one but two podcasts titled "High Agency" have launched, one dedicated to AI, the other to entrepreneurship. On LinkedIn, a wide range of sectors, from solar to crypto, are suddenly seeking “high-agency” applicants. And on Substack, tech-culture essayists are schooling readers on how to ratchet up their “high-agency” qualities, which are said to be possessed by tech elites and top athletes.

"High agency" was coined in 2016, when Eric Weinstein, then the managing director of Peter Thiel's investment firm, referenced it during an appearance on a podcast hosted by the self-help guru Tim Ferriss. In Weinstein's formulation, a high-agency approach to the world is "constantly looking for what is possible, in a kind of MacGyverish sort of a way."

It's a trait mostly assigned to people who start their own companies, seize opportunities that others miss, and never take "no" for an answer. High-agency people are rich, successful, or on their way to being both. They're action-oriented and find opportunities where others see roadblocks.

As the article explains, Americans love phrases and terms that are meant to inspire future hard-working business leaders. Words like grit, type A, and even girlboss all connote an intense drive. The phrase “high agency” grates me a bit though. It sounds hyper-individualistic and implies a sort of pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps type mentality. The reality of life in America is that it doesn’t matter how “high agency” you are, you could end up in medical debt and lose your house, or become permanently disabled overnight from catching a virus someone gave to you on the bus to work.

Silicon Valley billionaires like Marc Andreessen talk about “high agency” people as if they’re some superior class and the traits they carry are innate, which reads a bit weird to me considering how fond those people are of eugenics. That said, the phrase does seem to be getting mainstreamed enough already that it won’t carry those connotations for very long. It is already being fully adopted into the hustle-bro lexicon. You can read the full story on Business Insider.

A deep dive into the zoomers aiding Musk’s government takeover

Over the past week, Elon Musk has been engaged in a near wholesale takeover of key areas of the U.S. federal government. Working under the newly minted "Department of Government Efficiency" aka DOGE, Musk and a group of young Gen Z loyalists have begun wreaking havoc on our institutions.

On this week’s Power User, Ryan Broderick joins me me to break down who exactly these 19 to 25 year old men are, what their backgrounds reveal about the people Musk is hiring, and what the billionaire is currently doing to the U.S. government.

Since this story broke, one 25 year old DOGE staffer Marko Elez (who is discussed on the pod) has now resigned after being linked to a deleted X account that was posting insanely racist stuff including advocating for repealing the Civil Rights Act, enacting a “eugenic immigration policy,” and saying, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." Think how racist you have to be to get fired by DOGE 😵‍💫.

The journalism industry is truly fucked

Back in 2016, when I was living in D.C. and covering politics for The Hill, I became friends with another reporter named Miranda Green. Miranda is a phenomenal journalist and we both ended up in L.A. near each other. Miranda has always been a heads-down worker, focused on breaking major stories and holding power to account. She is a talented, brilliant, and a dogged investigator. She’s everything a newsroom should want in a journalist.

About a month ago, after a grueling job hunt, she landed a gig as a national investigative reporter at the Huffington Post. It seemed like a great job and I was so happy that she landed somewhere that would support her essential journalistic work.

But yesterday, just one month after she started, she was laid off as part of a round of cuts that eliminated her entire desk.

The fact that something like this could happen to a journalist as prolific as Miranda is an indictment of the media industry. Miranda has exposed egregious wrongdoing by the oil and gas industry. She’s written about how an Alabama power company seized control of a local Black newspaper. She’s exposed utility regulators taking millions from the industries they oversee. She used satellite analysis to expose a BP-owned company for selling carbon credits on trees that aren’t in danger. Just take a look at some of her recent reporting here.

She was a finalist for the 2023 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Her investigation into a grassroots seeming anti-solar group that had ties to a conservative political activist won second place in the 2024 National Headliner Awards for investigative collaborations. She is also a multi-media superstar with experience in broadcast media, podcasting, and writing.

Miranda has reported for nearly every major outlet including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, New York Magazine and more. While she primarily covers climate-related news, she has insane range. In 2023 she revealed that, after possibly the most expensive jewelry heist in U.S. history, Brink’s security company went after the victims. She covered the 2021 insurrection, profiling Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who was shot that day and died. Just this week she was writing about how Trump is targeting key environmental employees who help prosecute polluters.

All of this is to say, that if someone like Miranda can get laid off and struggle to find a job in journalism, no one is safe. The mainstream media is riddled with problems, and I strongly believe that a robust independent media ecosystem is preferable to a billionaire-backed corporate media landscape, but we desperately need journalists right now. The American public is less informed when journalists like Miranda can’t do their crucial reporting, which is essential to hold power to account.

I have no idea if anyone reading this knows anyone (ideally in L.A.) hiring an investigative reporter or someone with her skills, but here is Miranda’s LinkedIn. If you’d like to connect with her, even for part time work, just let me know I’d be happy to pass along her direct info.

What I’m reading

FYPcore and the Benson Boone-iverse

Is there such a thing as "music for Instagram Reels"? - Read Max

When Did Rock & Roll Die? A Statistical Analysis

When did rock fall out of the zeitgeist, and why? - Can’t Get Much Higher

Duck pouts and rawr faces: How facial expressions became trends

From the hollow-cheeked pout of the duck face to the scrunched up Gen Z look, here’s how selfie expressions become generational memes. - Dazed

Conflict-Prone

“Twitter, as a platform, held real value for the worst part of me.” - Critical Thinking (Lindsey Adler’s new Substack— subscribe!!)

The Mom Who Is Trying to Become a TikTok Influencer

“It’s been about four months, and I have almost 900 followers. Once I hit 1,000, I can start benefiting financially, like doing the Amazon storefront.” - The Cut

The Great Social Media Diaspora

What happens when sprawling online communities fracture into politically homogenous, self-governing communities? - Noema

China’s 60-Second Dramas Head to the US After Beating Box Office

Revenue in the mini-drama industry surged 35% to $6.91 billion last year, surpassing China’s box office. - Bloomberg

More fun stuff

Public libraries are being flooded with low quality AI-generated ebooks.

Next week NASA is doing the first ever Twitch stream from the International Space Station, 250 miles off the Earth. Viewers will have the opportunity to hear from NASA astronauts and ask questions about life in orbit.

Elon Musk’s takeover is causing drama in Trump’s inner circle.

America loves meat sticks, they are the fastest-growing category of snacks. But the flood of flavors and high-end options that have come with the snack’s rising popularity has divided fans.

Elon Musk’s DOGE is working on a custom chatbot called GSAi, a generative AI chatbot for the US General Services Administration.

The NFL hired Kyle Smith as its first-ever fashion editor last fall with a directive to use fashion and style to reach new audiences through the league’s media platforms.

Texas Redditors are banding together to find anti-Trump restaurants to patronize.

This influencer spent $2,697 to make her guest room look like a boutique hotel restaurant, and reader, it literally does.

A former Nickelodeon illustrator lost years of original artwork in the Eaton fire, including his only remaining Hey Arnold drawings. Support his GoFundMe here and help him get back on his feet.

United Health has hired one of the most censorship-happy law firms in the country to seek retribution against anyone who dares to post about their healthcare claim being denied.

A fascinating Twitter thread investigating why the hell MAGA-dress lady Joy Villa keeps getting invited to walk the Grammy’s red carpet.

Warner Brothers Discovery is taking old movies from its catalog and posting them to YouTube.

OpenAI is set to debut its first Super Bowl ad.

Spotify has said 70% of eligible creators are uploading video podcasts to the platform, but, in reality, few of the top podcasts are doing so. (Power User does though!)

Drake fans are feuding with Sabrina Carpenter after she teased an extended version of her album, released on Feb 14th, the same day Drake is set to release his.

Bustle Media Group, which owns W Magazine, Bustle and the now-shuttered Gawker, is being sued for nearly $3 million in back rent for “abandoning” its lease on its offices at 315 Park Avenue South.

Sarah Michelle Gellar confirms a ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ reboot is in the works.

Etymologist

Adam Aleksic

breaks down the fascinating way content houses are leveraging algospeak terms:

etymologynerd

A post shared by @etymologynerd

A North Dakota family ate at out at Applebee’s 52 times in a year in an attempt to get full value out of the company’s Date Night Pass.

A fascinating deep dive into the world of armpit fetishism. “There is definitely a ‘sniff hello’ culture.”

Elon Musk is making X into his own digital Mar-a-Lago.

Here are the apps battling to be become the ‘TikTok for Bluesky’.

Colombia’s president said that cocaine is “no worse than whiskey” and that it's only illegal because it comes from Latin America.

David Zaslav is selling his Greenwich Village townhouse for $21 Million, which he only bought to use as a de facto office after his wife, Pam, got sick of him taking “impromptu meetings” at their duplex on Central Park West. Photos here.

Beto O'Rourke joined Substack.

Andrew Huberman keeps falling for misinformation on X.

The flu (and Covid) is so bad right now that schools across the country are closing. If you’re looking to stock up on masks Bonafide Masks, which is an excellent place to buy quality masks, is offering 25% off and free shipping! They sell kids masks too in lots of fun colors.

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