August '24

The Eighteenth Side

Hi! Welcome to the eighteenth issue of The Good Side of the Internet! Super glad to have you here. For a brief run-down on what all the hullabaloo is about, please visit the About page for this publication.

This newsletter has been split into two sections. The first is external links that I truly adored, sometimes with my own little endorsements. The second is similar, but within Substack. There once was a third, compiling all the recommended readings on

thodi

over the last month. I’ve since discontinued the mini-TGSotI, so all links can be found in one place, right here.

The ones with the little asterisk next to them come Highly Recommended (by me). Please do heed the trigger warnings if they’re present. For access to paywalled essays, feel free to reach out. I’m always open to discuss/debate/listen to your opinions about any of these links and would probably ascend to a higher plane of joy.

Happy reading!

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TGSotI Reviewed

1. Spreadsheet Superstars | David Pierce, The Verge*

   An elite handful of analysts, actuaries, and accountants have mastered Excel, arguably the most important software in the business world. So what do they do in Vegas? They open a spreadsheet.

2. The Shapes of Silence | Jennifer Thuy Vi Nguyen, Longreads*

   On coming out and how secrets protect and harm us.

3. The Comfort Room | Megan Savage, The Rumpus

   Elissa adopted Ollie a couple of years after her diagnosis. He was a senior dog, the kind not often chosen—a brindled boxer with a dopey, drooling face who made me sneeze when he plopped his head on my lap. The shelter called him Ali (as in Muhammed), but Elissa changed the spelling because Ollie was more old man than fierce fighter. Walking side by side, dog and owner bounced like Muppets, Ollie’s stocky frame mirroring Elissa’s, which was wrapped in a hoodie and puffed by Prednisone and the coffee shop pastries that got her through the hard days. Though Elissa had never been a dog person, Ollie gave her something she needed, something to nurture. 

4. Swallowing: I Was Mike Mew’s Patient | Gabriel Smith, The Paris Review

   I met Dr. Mike Mew at the house next door to Jake’s. This house had been a house, but now it was a dentist. It was called the Smile Centre. Outside was a laminate board that said so, accompanied by a fading photo of a perfect and disembodied grin.

   Mike Mew is the head of the closest thing dentistry has to a cult. This was not true when I was nine but it is now. Mike and his father, John, believe that in humanity there is currently an epidemic of ugliness. They promise that you can build yourself a new and strong and masculine jawline, basically just by swallowing different. They call this mewing. His New York Times profile calls him a “celebrity to [the] incels,” but girls like him too. He has obtained adoration on both 4chan and TikTok. Mewing is a big thing, a real phenomenon.

5. India’s Education System is In A Crisis | The Swaddle’s Instagram

   Cancelled exams, leaked papers, inflated marks and controversies have cascaded into a system breakdown.

6. Finding Worth Among the Echoes | Cameron Carr, Longreads*

   Faded music dreams, a fledgling family farm, and a search for new definitions of work and success.

7. Rags to Riches | Maddie Oatman, Mother Jones*

   The race to understand—and profit from—period blood.

BONUS: “Marginalia” by Billy Collins

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In-house Links

This section contains links to pieces from different Substack publications. Again, the ones with the asterisk are personal favourites.

1. The Work of Art from

   The Convivial Society
   *

   The Work of Art

2. The Well from

   Dandelion Seeds: Illustrated Essays
   *

   The Well

3. Grief hits the body all at once, & then slowly from

   When will you rest, dear heart?
   *

   Grief hits the body all at once, & then slowly

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That’s a wrap for August ‘24! Feel free to make me the happiest person alive by reaching out to discuss any of it. For weekly poetry and song recommendations, plus a sometimes-nonsensical-sometimes-profound-sometimes-toopersonal article, we’d be happy to have you over at

thodi

.

If you’d like, please share this with your friends. Or your mother. Or on your Instagram story that you share a Spotify link on once in six months. Or anybody who you think would enjoy it. I am deeply passionate about telling people what to read.

Thanks for reading, and see you next month!

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