It's The 3-Year Anniversary Of Ted Cruz Liking A Porn Tweet On 9/11

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“Building 7” Is Trending

Waking up this morning, I opened my hellworld bird app, as I do every morning. And I had a very Twitter-specific feeling seeing “Building 7” trending — a swift cascade of confusion, mild surprise, and then a feeling of “oh, of course.” As I write this, “Building 7” is one of the top trending topics in the United States. It’s, of course, full of garbage from the typical bad actors — far-right provocateurs, anti-leftist riot porn YouTubers, and conspiracy grifters.

The trending topic refers to one of the most enduring conspiracy theories about 9/11. That World Trade Center 7 was brought down by a controlled explosion. Just to cover our bases here, let me point you to a report from the National Institute of Standards And Technology from 2017 that concluded, “the heat from the uncontrolled fires caused steel floor beams and girders to thermally expand, leading to a chain of events that caused a key structural column to fail. The failure of this structural column then initiated a fire-induced progressive collapse of the entire building.”

It’s not particularly shocking that the unhinged maniacs and con artists that Twitter continues to allow on their platform would take 9/11 as just another opportunity to sow chaos and spread paranoia. But it’s disheartening nonetheless.

So instead of going on Twitter, I suggest checking out this really sharp Esquire piece from this week about the 9/11 documentary Loose Change. It makes the argument that Loose Change is the one viral video that has really defined our current era of viral misinformation. My favorite passage in the piece is the reaction from Jim Meigs, the former editor in chief of Popular Mechanics, who oversaw a huge issue debunking popular 9/11 myths:

Which maybe speaks to Loose Change’s most important legacy. It’s not that paranoia and misinformation can spread virally, but that by the time it needs to be debunked, the damage has already been done.

Happy Three Year Anniversary To Ted Cruz Liking A Porn Tweet On 9/11

I went back and looked up what the official response was to this whole thing. Cruz blamed it on a staffing issue and said that one of the people who run his account must have “inadvertently” hit like on the post. OK, see, if you want a good 9/11 truther documentary, this is a story that needs to be blown wide open.

Gamers Are Mad That The Female Crash Bandicoot Has Purple Hair

I regret to inform you that the gamers are at it again.

In the new Crash Bandicoot game, Crash’s girlfriend Tawna has a new character design. I guess the game involves different dimensions and in one dimension Tawna shows up kind of looking like a cross between Furiosa and that cool lady lego from The Lego Movie. It’s fun and it seems like it makes sense for the game and character. Also lol it’s Crash Bandicoot, like imagine having any real opinions about Sonic the Hedgehog’s nu metal cousin. Well, unfortunately, people do. Apparently, the new Tawna looks like a “SJW” and it’s ruined the game.

If you’re really curious, you can search “SJW Crash Bandicoot” on Twitter and see all the anime profile pics having a meltdown. Once again, though, imagine having strong feelings about Crash Bandicoot in any way. Crash Bandicoot is literally the video game equivalent of an Alien Ant Farm. He looks the way Surge tastes. He wears jean shorts!

Here Are Three Really Bad TikToks My Friend Russell Has Sent Me This Week

• The Hagrid Thirst TikTok

• The Dr. Phill Daddy TikTok

• The Pee Window TikTok

Here’s A Good Tweet

OK, so not only was this absolutely a thing, there was a completely WILD period during my freshman year of college where all Facebook Events in your zip code or college network was public by default. Which meant every weekend the house’s having parties around our campus were blasted out on to the internet. We’d get a group together, put a bunch of Sparks (the precursor to Four Loko) in paper bags, make sure at least one of us had a smartphone with an internet connection, and hop from house to house. It was madness.

Asking For More Information About The Bill Hader Tulpa

Alright Garbage Day readers, you all send me great stuff every week. So I’m really counting on you now. I have seen whispers of a Tumblr user who is trying to summon a Bill Hader tulpa.

If you’re not familiar with what a tulpa is, it’s a form of mysticism very very loosely based on writings in the Tibetan Book Of The Dead. It describes an emanation or spiritual being that you manifest via meditation, or tulpamancy. The practice of conjuring spirits became super popular with bronies around 2014. A bunch of them spent months trying to psychically project their favorite ponies into their bedrooms. Several reported having psychotic breaks.

Anyways, it seems like there’s a Tumblr user out there who is both super weird and awful and also trying to manifest a Bill Hader tulpa.

I reached out to this Twitter user for more information, but I got owned super hard.

I did take their advice and Googled “Bill Hader Tulpa”. But I didn’t find anything other than this tweet from January.

So, Garbage Day readers. Can you help me find the Bill Hader tulpa???

The Mail As Two Different Kinds Of Protest Art

I’m not sure if people know about this, but I didn’t. The United States Postal Service has a program called Informed Delivery. It kind of rules? Every morning, I get photocopies emailed to me of the letters that will be arriving that day. I accidentally signed up for it, not really knowing what it was, but I feel like it’s changed my entire relationship with my mail.

As convenient as the service is, however, it also contributes to a greater state surveillance apparatus. The scans of your letters are stored and can be subpoenaed by law enforcement. This was something that artist Jesse England decided to focus on for his Informed Delivery project.

At first, he was using Informed Delivery scans to create a flipbook of a clock, satirizing an East German surveillance tactic:

In August, however, the project changed focus. Amid the Trump administration’s attacks on the Postal Service (and the sexy Transformers campaign to save it), England has started making new animations using Informed Delivery:

A 4chan User Has A Pasta Accident

(via spencerthefredder)

Kelly’s Back With A New COVID-Era Banger

Adam Sandler Won’t Stop Making Awful Movies In My Hometown

For those who don’t remember, Adam Sandler earlier this year said that he would make the worst movie ever if he didn’t win an Oscar for Uncut Gems. Well, he wasn’t even nominated for Uncut Gems and the trailer for his new film Hubie Halloween looks… extremely bad. People are speculating that this could be the huge stinker that Sandler was threatening.

Hubie Halloween is actually the second movie Sandler filmed in my very small hometown on the north shore of Massachusetts. The first one was Grownups 2. My mom met him a sandwich shop. I accidentally drunkenly bumped into him and knocked him off a porch once. He went go-karting with my dad. He seems like a cool dude.

Here’s the thing though. Hubie Halloween was filmed long before Sandler was snubbed for Uncut Gems. In July 2019, he turned my town into a fake Halloween set. It was big news. Which means this couldn’t possibly be his retribution movie. So if it’s not Hubie Halloween, what could it be? And will it involve my town again??

And Finally, Here’s Another Good Tweet

P.S. here’s a good thread about a Chinese poet and his cat.

***All typos in this email are on purpose actually***