My afternoon with The Rizzler
+ why 'dumb phones' suck, an update on Sam Altman's crypto orb, Skibidi Trump, and more
Anthony DiMieri, Kareem Rahma, New York Nico, me, and the Rizzler on set for Air. Air hired me to appear in their latest ad campaign, so I thought I’d write a little bit about what it was like!
Last weekend I flew to Brooklyn to appear in an ad campaign with the most in-demand social media star today: the Rizzler.
The Rizzler is a third grader in New Jersey named Christian, who shot to fame after a video of him dressed as Black Panther went viral on Instagram. He’s a key figure in the Costco Guys universe, a bizarre online world revolving around a father-son duo from Florida, who have made a name for themselves with their Costco-centric content (more on them in a future post). The Rizzler regularly collaborates with them, but he is not blood related to them as many think. He’s still just a typical kid who happened to blow up online. Kind of similar to the corn kid a couple years ago.
Christian’s charm lies in his blend of humor, confidence, and signature “rizz face”—a Zoolander-like expression that’s earned him half a million Instagram followers. His account, run by his dad, is full of family-friendly videos of Christian joking around and being himself. When I asked him how he felt about his viral fame, he just laughed and said he’s having a blast.
Despite his rising stardom, Christian’s dad says his son's life hasn’t changed much. There are occasional trips to New York for things like a Barstool Sports podcast appearance or to be the guest of honor at a Knicks game, but Christian still goes to the same school and hangs out with his friends.
“Most of his fan base is high schoolers,” his dad told me. “But in his class, he’s just Christian.”
His dad said he has no long term plans for Christian's online career. He said that he wants his son to be happy and if Christian doesn't want to do something he never has to. If he ever wants to quit the content world, that is fine with his father. So far he's just letting his son enjoy all the fun opportunities that have come with his online attention while still keeping his suburban NJ life relatively normal.
The chance to meet the Rizzler came through Air, a platform that's like Dropbox but for creative people. The platform makes it easier to organize, approve, and share media. They call themselves “a visual workspace for creative teams.” I became interested in Air because the brand is very good at grabbing people’s attention online, it seemed like they think about content from the perspective of people who actually consume it and were down to lean into personality, humor, and creativity.
Air hired the Rizzler to star in the ad, which had no script—just the Rizzler playing basketball and goofing off with comedian Kareem Rahma, who’s Air’s Chief Imagination Officer, both dressed as Steve Jobs. New York Nico played the director and I was cast to play an obnoxious journalist who couldn’t stop interrupting. You can check out the main ad below and the secondary one we made together.
Working with Air, I was basically playing a heightened version of myself. I was paid to be there as a content creator along with Nico and Kareem, but the whole thing was a giant improv exercise. I’ve been following Air’s marketing for a while, especially their work with Kareem, and when Ariel Rubin, Air’s head of content, pitched me the idea, I could not have said yes faster. Ariel gets how weird and intense it can be to be a creative person today, how we’re all juggling personal brands and online personas, and how absurd it can feel.
After the shoot wrapped we grabbed sandwiches in Williamsburg. Christian was excitedly talking about school and Halloween and how much he loves salami. He and his friends who came along to the shoot to hang out spent the afternoon playing with stickers from the shop. It was one of those perfect fall days in New York. Working on creative projects can be stressful, lonely, and exhausting. But collaborating with Nico, Kareem, and the Air team reminded me of how much fun it can be to make things for the internet with your friends.
Will smartphone bans, laws, and dumb devices make our lives better? No, they will not.
I loved every word of this entire piece by Elle Hunt in David Farrier’s Webworm, but especially these lines:
Ultimately, as much as we might like to point the finger at tech and imagine we’d be better off without it, we are entirely in charge of how we use it, and how much we let it derail us day-to-day.
Instead of reaching for bans, laws and new, “dumb” devices to address the problems we’re experiencing with our online lives, it seems to me that we need to give ourselves more credit, and bolster our sense of autonomy.
Deleting TikTok or Instagram or X might give you more time. But it’s still down to you to figure out how to spend it.
You can now order an eye-scanning orb to your door
Sam Altman is still trying to make his weird eyeball scanning orb thing happen.
Altman and his co-founder have become convinced that with rapidly advancing AI and robotics technology, it will become more important than ever to be able to prove that you’re human and not a bot. How will you do that? By scanning your eyeballs into a crypto orb, of course.
Worldcoin, which has been rebranded as World Network, is still using iris-scanning technology to generate tokens that would verify people’s identities. But just getting people to scan their eyes into the thing remains a big problem.
The company recently signed a partnership in Latin America that will allow people to order an on-demand Orb to their door like a pizza. The orb will show up at their home and they can join the World Network on the spot. WIRED has a great piece with more details on how the company is doing. But this quote is my favorite:
“We need more orbs, lots more orbs, probably on the order of a thousand more orbs than we have today,” chief device officer Rich Heley said during the keynote.
Elon continues to make Twitter worse
This week, X confirmed that blocking someone will no longer actually block them from seeing your posts.
Using Twitter at this point feels like being trapped in some sort of survival game where they keep making the experience worse and worse, hoping you’ll quit the game. X is already worth nearly 80% less than when Musk bought it, according to Fidelity.
I think the election is keeping Twitter relevant because it remains the primary platform for political discourse online, but I do think if Kamala wins and the political climate cools the app will struggle even further. In the meantime, Bluesky gained half a million new users in one day.
As Julia Alexander said, “Nearly every move the owner of [Twitter] has made since owning the site is seemingly designed to remove agency from users who don't want to engage with a culture that he creates.”
Heartwarming update from the Super Mario world
After his mother passed away, the admin of a Super Mario blog posted an emotional plea. He explained that he didn’t have the money to continue on and he wasn’t even sure if the work he was doing had value in the world or if people cared. Thousands of people rallied and boosted his Patreon, and this morning he announced that not only was he not shutting down his blog, but he’d be able to do his work full time. It’s so rare to see anything good happen online these days, this made my heart hurt!
What I’m reading
JD Vance Adviser Posted on Reddit for Years About Use of Cocaine, ‘Gas Station Heroin,’ Other Drugs
Aaron Kofsky, JD Vance’s financial policy adviser, called Vance “a Trump boot licker” and instructed users on how to transport drugs through TSA in the posts. “Coke then opiates is always my go-to,” he wrote. - WIRED
An AI-powered bot army on X spread pro-Trump and pro-GOP propaganda
The bot network supported Republican candidates in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and boosted North Carolina’s Republican-led voter identification law. - NBC
Marissa Mayer: I Am Not a Feminist. I Am Not Neurodivergent. I Am a Software Girl
She was the 20th hire at Google, then the head of Yahoo, and now the CEO of Sunshine. “What delighted me less about Mayer was her disdain for feminism.” - WIRED
The organization that safeguards the internet’s history is under attack
The internet has been disappearing since its inception. A quarter of all webpages that existed between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible. - CJR
Adobe Is Working on a Tool That Can Identify Artists’ Work Anywhere
Project Know How is designed to identify artwork not just online, but on various IRL surfaces too. Examples include t-shirts, tote bags, tumblers, and posters. - Passionfruit
TikTok wants to turn millions of Americans into paid shopping influencers
You only need around 1,000 followers to earn money eating noodles and selling toys on TikTok Shop. - Rest of World
Other fun stuff
Spindrift’s founder drinks six cans a day.
Meta fired employees making $400,000+ per year for using $25 meal credits on toothpaste.
Just plugging The Verge’s 2004 package again because it really is so good.
Kids cannot stop sucking down baby food pouches.
The songwriter for Rihanna’s SOS revealed that the lyrics are all 80s song titles strung together.
The founder of Adult FriendFinder was funding an international race science network.
Maxim magazine is somehow still around and just endorsed Donald Trump.
Dave Portnoy is entering his dog dad era.
I really do not think we need to know Jojo Siwa’s opinions on Biden’s border policies.
Threads has a green dot now to indicate when users are online.
This video gets more and more Australian with every turn.
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