One feed to rule them all
+ LOLfood, WikiTok, Hawk Tuah vs FaZe Banks, ChatGPT obituaries, a Sigma Boy psyop, and getting perma banned from Disney's most exclusive club
Feed fatigue is real. As the social landscape fragments I’ve become increasingly overwhelmed by the number of feeds I have to check just to keep tabs on what’s going on. On top of this, every social app’s feed is algorithmically optimized to maximize engagement and it feels impossible not to miss something.
So, I was happy to discover that the group of developers who created the beloved Twitter client Twitterrific, recently launched a new app called Tapestry which aims to solve this problem. Tapestry collects all your feeds across a suite of apps and presents them in a single master feed.
Tapestry suck up content from your Bluesky timeline, posts to your favorite Subreddit or blog, your Tumblr dashboard (if you’re still using that), and even recent YouTube videos from your favorite creators, combining it all into one streamlined scrolling experience.
The master feed on Tapestry is advertisement free apart from a single ad on top for non paying members. It is also chronological. There are no algorithms or recommended content sullying your browsing experience. Adding a new feed to the app takes just a minute and you can split out different timelines within the app or modify your feed by muting certain content. You can also search keywords across all your feeds, making it easy to locate posts on specific topics. The app is free, but for $2 a month or $20 a year, you can unlock a bunch of detailed customization features and eliminate the singular add at the top of the feed.
I’ve only been using the app for a couple days, but so far I really like it. Not all apps are supported on Tapestry yet, so you can’t yet sync your Instagram or X feeds. TikTok is also not supported, but TikTok relies so heavily on algorithmic recommendation that I’m not sure a reverse chron feed would be the ideal way to experience it, though it would be great to import posts from your favorite creators.
It turns out that Tapestry is not the only app trying to build a universal feed. The Verge’s David Pierce has also been using Tapestry and wrote about the rise in what he’s calling “timeline apps.” Pierce writes:
In addition to Tapestry, there’s Reeder, Unread, Feeeed, Surf, and a few others. They all have slightly different interface and feature ideas, but they all have the same basic premise: that pretty much everything on the internet is just feeds. And that you might want a better place to read them.
Timeline apps are sort of a spiritual successor to RSS readers like Google Reader and Feedly. (Some of them, like Reeder and Unread, are just updated versions of longtime RSS readers.) Years ago, RSS readers were designed to help you keep all your blogs and websites in order, back when maintaining your blogroll was a lot of work. Now the job is vastly more difficult…
You can’t quite replace your entire internet existence with a timeline app because so much of all of our internet existence is interactive. You can read Bluesky posts in a timeline app, but you can’t like or reply; you can watch a YouTube video, but you can’t wade into the comments. Maybe you’ll be able to someday — open, federated social networks make that interoperation possible, which is why I think Surf, which lets you like and reply and comment in addition to just reading, is such a cool and ambitious idea.
The biggest challenge for timeline apps is that they are essentially required to be all things to all people. A great timeline app has to offer a top-notch reading experience one swipe away from a full-featured podcast platform and one more swipe away from a beautiful video player. So far, Reeder is the app I’ve tried that does this the best — it lets you filter by content type or by source, can play almost anything in line, and is just really nice to look at. Even it has a long way to go, though, and most of these other apps are even further behind…
I suspect timeline apps are exactly the thing we need for the internet we have now. Maybe someday we’ll get fully interoperable everything and life will be magical. Until then, there’s something powerful in taking all your favorite stuff — and I really recommend picking only your favorite stuff — and putting it into one place.
The rise of Temu fascism
Journalist Kat Tenbarge (who has an excellent new newsletter) and I joined our friend Matt Bernstein last week for a special edition of his podcast talking about the rise of conservative aesthetics.
We dig into the rise of quiet luxury, clean girl, and old money aesthetics. We analyze Kylie Jenner’s pivot from Black culture vulture to glass skin pilates princess. And we dissect why college kids are dressing like Shein replicas of Reagan-era prepsters.
You can watch the full video here and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel!
What I’m reading
A Shirley Temple Hates to See Him Coming
Leo Kelly is an 11-year-old beverage critic, and he already has the power to change restaurant menus. - NY Times
Everything Sucks. At Least There Are Jalapeño Poppers.
Welcome to the LOLfood era, where as the world burns, the beautiful eat pizza rolls. - Eater
Inside a retreat for billionaire heirs looking to give away their money
They only had one weekend to give away $100 million of their inheritance. But first, karaoke. - Business Insider
There’s Only One Man Responsible for All Those Strange, Random Holidays.
Minor consumer holidays don’t just appear out of nowhere. There’s a method to the madness—and it’s juicier than you’d think. - Slate
Can Rayne Fisher-Quann Shift from Internet Princess to Bestselling Author?
The publishing industry is hinging its hopes on a twenty-three-year-old with a Substack and a devout following. Can she deliver? - The Walrus
Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Banished Forever
The Andersons were kicked out of Disneyland’s most exclusive club. They would not go willingly. - Vulture
More fun stuff
Watch the 10 most watched Super Bowl ads on YouTube.
You too can be a macro data refiner at Lumon Industries!
The Central African Republic becomes the first country to launch a meme coin.
Onijah Robinson, the American woman who went viral for refusing to leave Pakistan after traveling there to meet her 19 year old online lover, has launched her own cryptocurrency, $ONIJAH.
People are using Chat GPT to write their loved ones obituaries.
An interesting examination of how overnight podcasting phenomenon Bobbi Althoff lost her entire audience in a year.
WikiTok is a new site where you can can vertically swipe through an endless stream of Wikipedia article previews in a TikTok-like feed.
Ukraine is calling the Russian pop song ‘Sigma Boy’ a psyop weapon in Moscow’s “information war.” If you haven’t heard the song yet, it’s inescapable on IG Reels.
Did you see that viral video where no one showed up to “Aunt Barb’s” book signing on TikTok? It turns out the whole thing was staged and the creators just rented out an empty bookstore.
The tests everyone is using to judge AI by it turns out are close to meaningless.
The Hawk Tuah girl has resurfaced in a new interview with FaZe Banks after being MIA for two months. She is now claiming that she doesn’t run any of her own social media accounts. Already, Banks has asked Welch to fire her entire team after they allegedly 'leaked' the episode before it was supposed to be published.
JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg quit social media after issuing a cryptic apology.
Elon supporters are trying to get him to eliminate the penny as a form of currency.
A Chinese influencer spent $140K on a hyper-realistic “android” robot costume and is now living life as a human robot.
The federal government is suddenly buying troves of data about Americans.
The TikToker who went viral in 2020 for condescendingly saying people should vote for Biden, has posted a video after all these years saying that she was wrong.
The show ‘English Teacher’ has been renewed for a season 2 by FX, despite the controversy surrounding the creator.
Staten Harry, who went viral for making videos stanning Lady Gaga as a child, says he no longer supports her and called her fans demonic.
Musk is rehiring the 25 year old DOGE staffer behind a slew of insanely racist posts after JD Vance came out in support of him.
Trump megadonor Steve Wynn has filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, which protects the media's ability to aggressively cover public officials.
Tinder adds new Explore categories to help you find likeminded dates.
An 85-year-old man invited his entire neighborhood to his “Doug’s winter party,” which is now trending on TikTok.
The king of censorship and newly-minted FCC chairman Brendan Carr is threatening one of the oldest radio stations in the country for reporting the news too specifically.
An interesting examination of why only bad poems go viral and what makes certain poems such efficient engines of discourse.
A passioned plea to journalists to please stop covering “pro-natalist” media grifters Simone and Malcolm Collins, who the writer calls “abusive industry plants from Peter Thiel’s extended circle."
Simpsons voice actor Hank Azaria listens to an AI recreation of his voice and discusses the future of the voice acting industry. (He does think most of it will be replaced by AI)
Meet the couples breaking up over Trump. “As America’s political divide widens, so too does the country’s dating pool.”
For more great content follow my meme page, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Instagram broadcast channel where I share links all week long. You can buy me a coffee here.
Listen to my podcast Power User on Apple Podcasts:
Or follow Power User on Spotify:
I was hoping you were going to mention Doug’s Winter Party! It’s so sweet, I hope it’s a monster bash on Saturday!!!