The Apple That Ate Everything
If you had to choose between reading Tabs today and reading Tabs tomorrow, you should probably wait ’til tomorrow.
Apple did that thing on Monday where it absorbs a couple industries and makes them features of the iPhone but no one cared that much because what’s the alternative? Facebook? This time it was music and news, which will now be known as Apple Music and Apple News. Apple News murdered the old Newsstand, and probably also Flipboard, but the Wall St. Journal is jumping right in with a new app called What’s News. Rumor has it that VICE is developing its own news app, called “Fuck News!” But don’t worry! Whatever platform / mega-corporation / sentient algorithm selects our news for us in the future, we will still only want the garbage we have always wanted.
One other thing that Apple announced was sexual and reproductive health tracking in its health data API Healthkit. Women have been asking why this stuff wasn’t already included since Healthkit launched last year, and many are pleased to see it now, although apparently you have to understand how an API is different from an app (or, like, a pencil I guess?) to get why it matters.
The old becomes new again #webdesign #inspiration #aeasd pic.twitter.com/WSLtSXYl7m
— Emese (@egaal) June 9, 2015
But who can find time to care about Apple’s final absorption of two of the main modes of human expression when Medium just invented “Letters“, which are apparently Medium posts that you can email! It’s like TinyLetter but less… tiny. Who can care when Brit Plus Co just raised another $20 million to do craft kits… or an Etsy-style marketplace? Life hacks? Who even knows anymore, just jam in that cash-hose and start the pumps. We’ve got Yuccies to worry about now, which, say what you will about how awful (and long, oh god so long) that tab is, “Yuccie” is an irresistible coinage and will surely flourish, which is no less than we deserve. And the Instagram memoir! “Available in January!” somehow, despite not actually having a publishing deal yet. It probably will be available in January, though. I don’t know about you, but I Literally. Can’t. Even.
The only one who could ever reach me was the son of a pizza man
— allyn rachel (@allynrachel) June 9, 2015
Why should we save any of it, really, when disgraced former blight on Buzzfeed, plagiarist, and vacuous content garbage chute Benny Johnson is being rehabilitated in the Washington Post as “the nicest, most genuine person” and “the most creative person I’ve ever met.” Gawker suggested that the profile writer, Ben Terris, is a friend of Johnson’s, but Terris denied it and seems surprised people are reading the profile as a rehab at all. I think I figured out why we’re confused:
hmmm ⌘+f “vapid word torturer” nope nothing there either, weird…
I’m exhausted. Romy, what’s the news from the more genteel and responsible media up north?
One can think of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a smaller version of the UK’s BBC, so after watching waves of disgrace on that side of the Atlantic, the CBC is trying its hand at a similar chain of disaster. Last year, Q host Jian Ghomeshi’s violent and non-consensual sexual proclivities made headlines around the world, and the broadcaster was forced to let him go. Now, they’re losing another big personality due to unprofessional behaviour.
The latest scandal centres on Evan Solomon (the Canadian one), who used the journalistic contacts made through his nightly television news program Power & Politics and political radio show The House to broker art deals with long-time friend (and Canadian Gatsby) Bruce Bailey.
No CBC scandal can match Canada’s real shame: in the late 90s, the Barenaked Ladies invented acoustic cover versions of rap songs.
— Andrew S (@bn2b) June 10, 2015
Speaking to reporter and Gawker superfan Kevin Donovan, Solomon issued not one but three statements, each adding to and contradicting the previous. Per the Toronto Star:
“I have never been involved in an art business,” he said. “I have never sold any art to anyone.”
When the Star inquired further, Solomon said he was involved but had done nothing wrong. “I have been involved in an art business and it is all disclosed to CBC.”
Solomon then said: “I am no longer involved in the business. It is over.”
If it was over, it was likely due to Solomon and Bailey’s recent falling-out and subsequent court dispute over a $1 million commission. They reached a settlement this week, just in time for everything to hit the fan.
The CBC doesn’t come out of this looking great, but to be fair, it didn’t go into it looking great either. The Star approached the Corporation early on in its reporting, and was told a prior investigation showed no ethical conflicts. Then, as the story went to press, Solomon was suddenly sent packing. Is that exactly how you would act if you were organizing a hasty cover-up? Sure. Would it be libelous to outright allege that? Maybe, but as a lowly Tabs Intern, it’s not for me to make that call. Right, Rusty?
Tabs is published in America, Romy! Here we can allege that anyone is corrupt, feckless, inept, mismanaged, or funny-looking to our heart’s content! And do you know why? Because we have 3D-printed untraceable rifles. Everyone’s just too distracted to worry about some words in a blog post. I mean we could all literally die at any moment in a hail of hot lead. YOLO!
Why Is Everything Terrible Now? Jon Bois makes a very solid case that it is the 90s fault, as exemplified by the water gun.
(June 13, 2015) in Tabs: via Elon Green, did you know Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a #longread for The Atlantic about Lady Byron in 1869, and that it “nearly destroyed The Atlantic?” Tabs are the only thing that lasts, kids.
Today’s Song: Modest Mouse, “The Fruit That Ate Itself“
~Tabs, tabs, tabs, see what’s become of me~
Today in Tabs is excited to hint that tomorrow we have a very special episode for you! You will find it, as always, on Fast Company and in your Medium™ Letters receptacle.
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