Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz         Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co   As Elon Musk's influence has grown, so too has a darker, more troubling side of his persona: his rampant egomania.Faiz Siddiqui is a former colleague of mine at The Washington Post and he's the author of the new book Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk.In this episode of Power User we break down exactly how Musk's narcissism has evolved throughout his career, and the key moments that reveal just how deeply Elon's self-obsession has shaped his life and the future he claims to build. (This episode originally ran in June)***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co  *****FOLLOW ME:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz https://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social 

[PATREON EXCLUSIVE] Subscribe on Patreon to listen to this and other bonus episodes of Power User!! SUPPORT ME ON PATREON.    Buy a subscription to my tech and online culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 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.Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz                 https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0                 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz      

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz         Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co     <<< 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.Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz                https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0                https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz 

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz        Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co    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. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz               https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0               https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz 

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz       Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 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. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz              https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0              https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz