Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

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Is There A Vibe Shift in Silicon Valley? [PATREON EXCLUSIVE] Dec 22, 2025

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Over the past few years, Silicon Valley startups have been becoming more and more dystopian. Crypto, gambling, AI friends, and other products that sound like they've been ripped from Black Mirror. But lately, there's been a little bit of backlash.

Marc Andreessen tried to dunk on the Pope asking for safety in AI development and got dragged, and more founders are talking about building things with purpose. Is Silicon Valley having a vibe shift?

John Coogan is the host of TBPN, a daily live show that's like sports center for the tech world. He is the go-to guy for what's going on in Silicon Valley. He joined me to discuss current Silicon Valley founder mindsets, what current trends are coming out of the tech world that you probably haven't heard of yet, and what the rightward shift in Silicon Valley really reveals.

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Social Media Addiction Isn't Real— Here is What's Really Happening Dec 19, 2025

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<<< FREE SPEECH FRIDAY>>>

People cannot stop claiming they are "addicted" to social media. Lawmakers continue to compare social media use to drug or alcohol addictions, while the media pushes an addiction framework for quitting social media.

But last week, a big new research paper dropped that debunks all of these narratives. The studies found that not only are a lot of our perceptions around social media and addiction completely wrong, just framing social media use as addiction *itself*is actually extremely harmful and makes it even HARDER to moderate your use of tech products.

Ian Anderson is one of the researchers at the California Institute of Technology who conducted the study. He's joined me today to break down what the research on social media and addiction actually says, how the media's framing of technology use as addiction is causing enormous harm, and what we can all do to actually fight back against big tech. He also gives tips on how to cut down on your own social media use.

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How Charlie Kirk Memes Are Radicalizing Gen Z w/ Ryan Broderick Dec 17, 2025

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After Charlie Kirk was killed in front of a crowd of students in Utah, right wing influencers and pundits claimed that his killing would result in millions of Charlie Kirks. Almost immediately, mini me Charlie Kirk clones began cropping up, and far right Gen Z influencers began attempting to mimic Charlie's viral debate formats.

But pretty soon, things went off the rails. Hardly a month after Charlie died, his widow Erika Kirk was pictured giving an awkwardly close embrace to JD Vance in skin tight pleather pants. Donld Trump all but forgot Charlie existed, and very quickly, Charlie became a meme.

Ryan Broderick is an online culture journalist and he's been covering The Great Kirkification. He joined me to talk about the rise of Charlie Kirk slop and what it's morphing into. Because as fun as it is to laugh at absurd memes featuring Charlie Kirk's face plastered into some mpreg emoji, the whole thing has taken a sharp turn lately and is now funneling a lot of people right back into the far right.

We dig into this new hyper online esoteric form of Naziism, explain the lore behind the mythical city of Agartha, and explain what all of this says about the current state of the internet, politics, and culture.

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The Global Internet Is Dying: America Is Repeating China's Biggest Mistake Dec 12, 2025

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IT'S FREE SPEECH FRIDAY!!!!!

For years, the United States villainized China for its restrictive internet landscape and mass censorship of online speech. But lately, things are changing. The U.S. and other western countries are careening towards authoritarianism and seeking to pass laws that mandate invasive surveillance and extreme censorship of online speech.

The pattern is very similar to what we saw in China and have seen in other authoritarian countries. Mass censorship and surveillance is ushered in with justifications about "child online safety," governments seeking to ban VPNs, removing anonymity from the web, constructing walled gardens, and so on.

James Griffiths is a Hong Kong based journalist who has covered China for over a decade. He is the author of the book The Great Firewall of China: How to build and control an alternative version of the internet. He joined me to talk about what China's internet is really like, the mass erosion of free speech on the western internet, and why the situation we're in right now is so dangerous.

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Everyone Is Wrong About The Olivia Nuzzi RFK Scandal w/ Kat Tenbarge Dec 10, 2025

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Recently, journalist Olivia Nuzzi has been at the center of the biggest political media scandal in years. A star journalist for New York Magazine, it was revealed that Nuzzi had secretly had a torrid love affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after profiling him for the magazine.

She came out of hiding this month to announce a new job at Vanity Fair and release her book, American Canto, about the whole experience. But within days of re-emerging she was once again at the center of a full blown firestorm after her ex fiance, political journalist Ryan Lizza, began to release Nuzzi's intimate text messages on his Substack.

Now, she's been fired by Vanity Fair and all of the media has been excoriating her for her blatant violations of journalistic ethics. But what about the men in this story? Journalist Kat Tenbarge joins me to break down Olivia Nuzzi's journey from teenage pop star to top political reporter to her relationship with RFK Jr, the Ryan Lizza saga, what's actually going on, and why we both think MSM news reporters are missing the real story underneath the whole saga.

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KOSA Won’t Just Silence LGBTQ Voices; It Will Also Be Used To Hide Abortion Info From The Internet

Congress Is About to Break the Internet Dec 05, 2025

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>>> FREE SPEECH FRIDAY <<<

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On Tuesday, members of the House of Representatives gathered for a big hearing called Legislative Solutions to Protect Children and Teens Online. The hearing was the latest attempt by lawmakers to force through a slate of horrifying surveillance laws that would censor the internet, strip the ability to freely access information, and cause great harm to children, especially marginalized youth. The mainstream media has been covering none of this.

Kate Ruane is a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and she testified this Tuesday in front of congress about these evil laws. Today, she joins me to break down what's going on in congress, what these proposed laws would do, and why we're at such a crucial moment when it comes to preserving privacy and free expression on the internet.

Read up via the links below and call your representatives today and tell them to stop The SCREEN Act, kill The App Store Accountability Act, and kill the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

Heritage Foundation Says That Of Course GOP Will Use KOSA To Censor LGBTQ Content

Why The Fuck Are Democrats Helping Build MAGA’s Censorship Machine With KOSA?

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The Radicalization Pipeline Nobody Sees Coming Dec 03, 2025

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Lately, growing swaths of the online left have embraced a messaging strategy known broadly as Dark Woke. While traditional Democrats still try to reach across the aisle and find common ground with conservatives, more on the left are becoming comfortable embracing outright bigotry, slurs, hateful rhetoric, dunking on conservatives, and going full "dark woke."

Twitch streamer SeanDaBlack has been covering the rise of this culture, and he joined me to talk about the rise of "woke" culture in America, how social justice movements have been warped by the internet, what Dark Woke really means and whether it's a winning strategy to counter Trump's online dominance.

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None Of This is About Online Safety Nov 28, 2025

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For decades, the Eelam Tamil ethnic group in Sri Lanka has been persecuted. They are dealing with ongoing occupation by the Sri Lankan government, which has also incited violence against Muslims in the country.

As tensions have escalated, the government has cracked down on speech, leaning hard into online censorship to censor anyone who questions the authority of the Sri Lankan government.

The government has banned social media, passed a restrictive "online safety act" and sought to enact strict controls over what can be said online, all under the guise of "online safety" and curbing "misinformation."

ArunAnnow has been covering the persecution of the Eelam Tamil people and the atrocities of the Sri Lankan government. He's an independent journalist and content creator. Today he's joining me to talk about the situation in Sri Lanka and how their "online safety" crusade is serving as a blueprint for authoritarian U.S. laws.

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https://grief-stricken-winds.com/

Grief-Stricken Winds Documentary Website:

News Sources/Orgs:

https://x.com/TamilGuardian

https://x.com/JDSLanka

https://x.com/lankafiles

https://x.com/PEARL_Action

People to Follow:

https://x.com/kumanan93

https://x.com/ambikasat

https://x.com/JeraThampi

Other Resources:

https://ptsrilanka.org

The MAGA Twitter Apocalypse w/ Charlie Warzel Nov 26, 2025

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Over the weekend, Twitter descended into complete and utter chaos. Elon Musk rolled out a feature called “About This Account” that allowed people to click on the profile of an X user and see exactly what country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed.

Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” were identified as originating in places like India, Pakistan, Russia, or Nigeria, engagement farming to earn money through X's creator revenue program, available to those who purchase a blue check.

Charlie Warzel is a longtime technology writer at The Atlantic who has been covering this rollout. Today he's joining me to discuss whether the "about this account" feature is truly 9/11 for pro MAGA accounts, how our internet is being warped by inauthentic activity, whether this truly signifies the end of the social web, and what comes next.

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