RIP Shein and Temu?
+ Microchip manis, Trisha Paytas' Broadway debut, a BuzzFeed social network, Unwell spring break, peak accessory, and the ‘Call Her Daddy’ of the Right
Shein, Temu, and dropshippers are facing an ‘extinction level event’
Yesterday, the United States Postal Service began halting all packages from China until further notice because Trump's tariffs got rid of a key import duty exemption. WIRED’s Louise Matsikas, who reports on China and tech, said that she has “never seen anything like this in my life.”
The decision could have major consequences for online shoppers and retailers who rely on platforms like Temu and Shein. The move comes amid escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China, and after Beijing slapped retaliatory tariffs on American imports in response to new tariffs imposed by President Trump.
The latest chaos stems from a Trump executive order which not only tacks on an extra 10% tariff to Chinese imports, but also eliminates a loophole that has quietly fueled the rise of online shopping giants like Temu and Shein. Known as de minimis, the rule previously allowed packages worth less than $800 to enter the U.S. tariff-free, perfect for ultra-cheap fast fashion and TikTok trend cycles. Over 1.36 billion de minimis packages flooded the U.S. in 2024 alone, a nearly tenfold increase since 2015. Now, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is tasked with scrutinizing this tidal wave of imports.
Logistics operators are already scrambling to adjust. The owner of a trucking company in Canada named Daniel told WIRED that two of his trucks were rejected by U.S. border patrol because they were carrying packages from China. After speaking with a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, his company managed to get one truck into Washington state, but only after removing every last package from China.
“A lot of trucks were actually turned away today at the border,” he told WIRED. “And a lot of officers were checking the trucks and questioning [drivers] like, ‘Are you sure there are no made-in-China items in there? This is your last chance.’ They were actually going through the trucks and randomly checking the packages.”
For shoppers, the price hikes could appear immediately. Some experts are predicting that the cost of cheap items from China could triple or quadruple. A $5 dress from Shein, WIRED reports, could now be hit with multiple layers of taxes including the pre-existing 16% tariff, a 7.5% Section 301 duty specifically for goods from China, the new 10% tariff introduced by Trump, additional processing fees, customs brokerage fees, and other shipping and handling costs that may be raised as a result of the chaos.
What a mess!
Joe Rogan says the Harris Campaign lied about being misled by the show: “We Have the Receipts”
Last week, NBC published an article detailing the inside story of how the Harris' campaign lost its gamble to appear on Joe Rogan. The reporting, from a new book by Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amie Parnes of The Hill, detailed how the campaign scrambled to hold an impromptu rally in Texas in an attempt to put Harris in proximity to appear on Rogan’s show, which films in Austin, TX.
According to the report, the Harris team was then told that the date “was blocked out as a personal day,” which later turned out to be the same day Rogan interviewed Donald Trump. The story implied that Rogan had basically screwed the campaign over and never intended to have Harris on.
On Tuesday, Rogan took to his podcast to respond to the report, basically calling it bullshit and claiming that the whole NBC story was “someone trying to cover their ass." I’m inclined to believe Rogan here, given the Harris campaign’s hostile attitude toward content creators who didn’t appear 100% on board with the campaign and its messaging.
“This whole idea that we fucked her over and we fucked her over for Trump — incorrect, just not true,” Rogan said on yesterday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. “One of the things they said that wasn’t true was that we lied about the day that Trump was coming on, and we just didn’t [say] that Trump was coming on.”
“This is how it worked: Trump was really easy to book,” Rogan said. “Like, super easy. We offered one day. He said, ‘Yes.’ That was it. It was no, ‘What are we going to talk about? How long is it going to be? Is it going to be edited?’ … It was so easy. So he was already booked. [The Harris campaign] never committed to doing the show … They said that the reason why they did the Beyoncé event in Houston was so that they could be in Texas to do my show. They never agreed to do the show. None of that’s true. They also said that they sent someone down here to the studio to do a walk-through of the set. That’s not true. These people didn’t have a date. They never agreed to do the show.”
Rogan continued: “I wanted to release both of [the interviews] on the same day. [That was] my goal. I even offered to do it late that [same] night. So the night that Trump came on, I’m like, ‘What if we do her when she’s done in [Houston], if she came here?’ But no one ever committed to doing it. This is really important, because they keep pretending that I lied.”
“Even after Trump went on, they offered for me to come to D.C. and do a show with Kamala,” he said. “But then, it was only like 45 minutes to an hour. And it was not on my set. And I said that, ‘Look, [Trump] did it here. We should probably do it here if it’s possible’…”
“[The Harris staffers are] saying we were difficult to deal with. Not true. We were super easy. But also it’s got to be the actual real show. It shouldn’t be some fake version where I’m sitting in a conference room. Oh, also, they wanted a stenographer in the room. They wanted staff in the room. Trump was just in here by himself. It very controlled, and they were really concerned that [the podcast] wasn’t going to be edited. My manager asked, ‘Is she committed to doing this?’ The answer was ‘No, she hasn’t committed.’ Like they wouldn’t even say whether or not she had expressed willingness to do it… There were some people that were supposedly on her staff that were against her doing it. They thought [the show] was bad because [they are] a bunch of wokesters.”
“So I don’t think they ever really were sure they wanted to do it,” Rogan said. “Then, once Trump did it, [the interview] had this huge response. I think then it was like, ‘What the fuck are we doing? He just did it. Got 50 fucking million views. This is so stupid. Why didn’t we do it?'”
“We have all the receipts, by the way,” Rogan added. “Of course, I have a whole list of conversations that took place … I think it’s someone trying to cover their ass for the fact that she never did it, and if she did do it, it might have had a positive effect. [If] we got along great, and [it improved the] ‘young male vote’ things could have been different’ … “
A small victory for free speech
Last week, I was extremely critical of Substack CEO Chris Best’s recent praise of Elon Musk. Musk has worked to aggressively censor speech on X, consistently threatens journalists with defamation suits, and has funded political campaigns aimed at restricting free speech. I ended up doing a Substack live convo with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie to discuss the issue, and I think he addressed Best’s comments well.
For the past few months, Substack has been involved in a lawsuit brought by tech executive Maury Blackman, who has sought to censor Substack journalist Jack Poulson for publishing a sealed police incident report and accurately reporting that Blackman was arrested in 2021 on suspicion of felony domestic violence. (Blackman was never charged or convicted.) In addition to suing Poulson and his nonprofit, Blackman also sued Substack and Amazon Web Services, which hosts Substack.
Substack and AWS both filed motions under California’s anti-SLAPP law seeking dismissal of Blackman’s claims. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” and they are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they retract their journalism and abandon criticism.
Yesterday, a San Francisco judge ruled in favor of Substack and Poulson, granting their anti-SLAPP motion in full. “At Substack, we believe in rigorously defending independent journalism,” co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi said in a statement. “We’re thrilled that… the Jack Poulson case has been successful and that Poulson’s reporting has been vindicated as protected by the First Amendment. The court's decision reaffirms the importance of defending journalists’ work in support of a free press. We’ll continue upholding the principles of free expression and ensuring that independent journalists on Substack can hold the powerful to account.”
What I’m reading
The Conservative Star Who Wants to Host the ‘Call Her Daddy’ of the Right
The first episode of Brett Cooper’s new podcast has already garnered more than two million views on YouTube. But how much of her success is organic? - Bloomberg
The Last Days of American Orange Juice
Not only is the supply of orange juice becoming shaky, but so is that of eggs, milk, and coffee. - The Atlantic
Welcome to HillmanTok University, the Digital HBCU Inspired by ‘A Different World’
As the Trump Administration tries to erase Civil Rights, TikTokers have found a way to spread information freely. - Rolling Stone
More fun stuff
YouTuber Trisha Paytas made her Broadway debut in a sold-out, one-night-only benefit called Trisha’s Big Broadway Dream.
This fun site allows you to upload your photo through the Google Vision API to see how much advertisers can infer about you from a single pic.
The first ever native iPhone porn app, Hot Tub, has arrived in the EU.
Listen to the biggest Warriors fan group chat on Twitter when 'the trade' happened.
BuzzFeed is considering building its own social media platform to compete with the big players and better distribute its content. (Take this with a grain of salt based on the reporter’s track record!)
Over the past year, OpenAI met with a slew of Hollywood studios to show off its new video tool Sora. None of them has done a deal to use it.
We have reached peak accessory, where even your accessories have accessories.
A fascinating interview with a creator who's been regularly posting videos to the internet since before YouTube even existed. (h/t
)Chipped makes press on nails with mini NFC tags that allow your nails to act similar to a QR code, launching a web page with your socials when you wave a finger in front of a phone. They hosted a pop up offering micro chip manis in NYC.
Apple launched Invites, an app for creating custom invitations.
The Nob Hill Gazette’s list of the most eligible people in San Francisco includes several niche SF internet personalities including Michael Lai, a “Network State Bro whose ‘Neighborhood SF’ project is specifically mentioned in Balaji’s plan to ‘replace San Francisco,’” and Michelle Tandler, who became famous for being a Republican anti-San Francisco influencer who claimed the city was full of “meth poop.”
Crypto pump and dump scammers hijacked the links in Trump's posts on X.
Water released from California dams on last month's order from Trump is rushing into a dry lakebed in the Central Valley, where it can't flow to Southern California and will likely go to waste.
Andreessen Horowitz has hired Daniel Penny who killed subway performer Jordan Neely after putting him in a chokehold last year. Penny will join the $45 billion firm as deal partner despite having zero previous investing experience. JD Vance called Penny’s hiring “Incredible news.”
Musk tried to get an exception to hire a non-U.S.-citizen at DOGE. Trump’s team shot him down.
An extremely rare super pod of over 1,500 dolphins off the California coast is being called a “sign” and “an ominous warning.”
Enron’s meme coin plummeted shortly after launching on Tuesday. If you’re in the crypto space at all, do not lie to Coffeezilla!
Alex Cooper’s Unwell network is hosting a Spring Break party in Miami this March. The event will feature three nights of “unforgettable Unwell experiences, including live performances, pool parties, beach activities, Unwell Talent, and surprise guests.”
The trailer for this new thriller about a group of armed Redditors looking for revenge after losing everything in a crypto scam looks good tbh.
Google drops its pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance.
Joe Biden has signed with Hollywood talent agency CAA for god know’s what, because from what I saw at the White House last August the man is barely coherent.
Lilly Singh has returned to YouTube after a multi-year hiatus following the 2021 cancellation of her late-night talk show for NBC.
The AP was forced to apologize after two on-camera journalists snubbed Babyface when Chappell Roan walked by at the Grammy’s.
Bill Gates and Walter Isaacson interview each other for Interview.
Dub is a new influencer-driven investment app where users can follow the trades of top investors, dubbed “the TikTok of investing” by
.How a kids-focused podcaster reached 1 million monthly downloads: Jim Jacob accidentally stumbled upon a huge market opportunity when he launched Kids Short Stories.
The most comprehensive breakdown I’ve seen yet of the saga of the American Woman in Pakistan.
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Looks like usps has already reversed this decision, now accepting those packages again https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/suspension-of-inbound-parcels-from-china-and-hong-kong.htm but they will still have to go through customs and won’t enjoy the de minimus exemption, so still bad for temu, shein and Amazon