Your AI Fertility Doula Will See You Now

ChatGPT, am I ovulating?

and

May 16, 2025

Good morning! Here’s what you missed on GLEE! (absolutely not but — but anyway!)

Lots to talk about this week, from that HBO rebrand to De Beers ditching lab-grown diamonds. As for goings-on around these newsletter parts, a few things.

We ran a fun interview with Maren Hamilton who once facilitated the delivery of a North Face puffer to the top of a MOUNTAIN!
My next long-form, career-y piece will tackle personal branding and getting started with writing. Please drop any questions in the comments.
We’re considering thoughtful brand partnerships as a part of this space moving forward. Hit us up if you’re trying to do something cool 📧

Christina’s weekly scroll –

Does the female gaze actually exist?
Miss Poopie is launching her first fragrance.
The fertility doula you never knew you needed: ChatGPT!
Virtual therapists are lying to patients. Some believe they are board-certified and even use stolen license numbers from real therapists…
And because chatbot therapy feels private, it poses a massive privacy risk. In the wrong hands, it could become a surveillance tool for a police state.
Snoopy Tamagotchi. That is all!
Bettors spent over $40 million gambling on who the new pope would be. Yikes.
Speaking of the new pope… Pope Leo is officially on Instagram!
Cannes goes no-nude. The pendulum continues to swing to the right.
Fashion’s Substackification. Makes sense that brands are investing in their own editorial vs. traditional PR but… *gestures vaguely*
Brand Person
Brands, here's how you should actually launch your Substack.
A few weeks ago, I posted a quick Note sharing my perspective that most brands shouldn’t launch a Substack. Brands should invest in partnerships with Substack writers. Founders should launch a Substack if they’re interesting and represent the brand. But most brands shouldn’t launch a Substack…
Read more
2 months ago · 126 likes · 35 comments · Jess Eggert
After 25 years, Ren Beauty is shutting down.
Film corner: Letterboxd’s launching an online film rental store. Moviefone is back. Mubi is raising $100m — and if the deal closes (as expected), the financing round will value Mubi at more than $1 billion. Not too shabby!
Bella Thorne, Baby Ariel from Musically, Grace Van Dien and True Whitaker have been cast in Spring Breakers 2.
Am I late here? This is one of the craziest (obv a spicy BookTok parody) ads I’ve seen in a while.
RIP movie stars. Long live the artthrob.
H&M Home x Palm Heights, coming soon. The robes are very Tekla!
People are spending a lot of money on newsletters. Like $3,000/year a lot. I’ll leave you with this:
Have you ever wondered how video game sex scenes are made?
Wow, Pop Mart is popping. PM is currently valued at roughly 120 times what Funko is worth and more than 5x Mattel and 3.5x Hasbro’s market caps.
Skateboarding has always been and will always be cool. More here on the enduring cool of skateboarding games.
Warner Bros. has lost the kids. That’s all, folks!
Warner Bros. owns HBO Max and Discovery+
Gaming has real impact (!) A new survey found that nearly half of gamers make greener choices after playing climate change games.
Pinterest agreed to pay $34.7M to settle a lawsuit from early advisor Christine Martinez, who says she co-created the platform but was never compensated.
New Google logo dropped, lol.
Google’s old logo vs. its new one
The CryptoPunks NFTs (lol) are being sold to a non-profit.
The Pokémon Fossil Museum is finally coming to America!!!
Airbnb announced Airbnb Originals:
We’re also introducing Airbnb Originals—extraordinary experiences hosted by the world’s most interesting people, designed exclusively for Airbnb. Learn pastry-making at the renowned French Bastards bakery with chef Raphaelle Elbaz, or play beach volleyball with Olympian Carol Solberg on Rio’s iconic Leblon Beach. Some Originals are even hosted by global celebrities. Transform into your anime alter-ego with Megan Thee Stallion in her Otaku Hottie Quest, step inside the Short n’ Sweet set with Sabrina Carpenter for a day of glam, dancing, and espresso, or spend a Sunday with Patrick Mahomes, learning how to throw the perfect spiral and enjoying Kansas City barbecue.

Nikita’s weekly scroll –

Cool girl facialist and skincare line owner Sofie Pavitt (who graces my own face with her mandelic by proxy) rolled out her new face mist, with an early drop exclusive to Sephora Rouge members. I have not snagged it because it features my skincare ingredient nemesis, niacinamide, but feels like mists are the next ‘it’ skincare category. EADEM rolled one out not to long ago.
The new media model is the cult of personality… gonna leave it at that! Oh and the new studio system is too.
Aimé Leon Dore espresso machine. Cue the LinkedIn takes from bros two years behind the cultural zeitgeist about how Aimé is building brand worlds! NEXT!
Friction as a worthy cultural idea has been bubbling up for the past eighteen or so months. I myself experimented with it with my recent essay drop — to which point, I’m kinda impressed by the digital half-life of that object. I digress. I think most of the meaninglessness of modern life is due to the fact that for a certain class of people we’ve erased any barrier to engaging with others or… experiencing the smallest tier of inconvenience, which to me is being human. Glad
kyla scanlon
went long on friction this week.
As Seyi Taylor famously said on Twitter: Everything is downstream of rent. How do innovative cultural ideas happen when rent is just too high?
The rise of the Muscle Mommy :’)
As someone who is constantly thinking about their own visibility and how much of it feels comfortable, I enjoyed this one from
Haley Nahman
.
Your AI sex chatbot is revealing your (questionable) desires to the internet at large!
Pope Leo XIV chose his name because of the rise of AI. Being that the last Pope Leo was around for the Industrial Revolution. And this Pope Leo sees the *gestures vaguely* times as similar. I do not disagree!
Brands on Substack continues! Hinge’s launch is likely the most talked-about this week. I really love brands exploring new channels, but (1) realistically what do you want to hear from a brand in long-form editorial and (2) curious what the adoption rate of these projects will be. They’re certainly hard to measure from a ROI perspective for suits.
Everyone is reinventing the media model blah blah blah Nylon launched a membership program.
De Beers is walking away from lab-grown diamonds. The ROI is just not there for them supposedly.
Another Madonna Media Moment is upon us! There’s a Netflix series on the way.
In line with AI intimacy, fans of OnlyFans creator, Ari Kytsya are upset she’s a real person who is kinda awkward and not a supersized thing to project their fantasies onto. I’m really scared about where we’re going as a society with regards to sex and gender relations candidly.
Modern Workout culture is just about control and you’d know that if you read my essay!
As someone with family in the restaurant business, I cannot understate the impact of Instagram and ‘NY-Foodie Culture’ on both coasts. So I enjoyed this 25 years of dining interactive from the NYT.
A lawsuit could lead to free speech rights for Chatbots, meaning… they’re going to be treated like people? Oof.
Tyshawn Jones is suing Supreme for $26M.
Another week, another horrific visual record of how young boys are falling behind. We need to figure out the media environment for young men for real. Ban podcast mics!
e.l.f. is sticking by DEI. GOOD.
Brand transformations take longer than the suits and the market has appetite for. Burberry is showing some early encouraging results but is also cutting 1700 jobs.
HBO rebrands Max to HBO Max. Hey, do you guys have a branding budget? I have ideas.
A semi-paint-by-numbers approach to brand launch—Julia Fox, funky components, a nepo-baby. Mienne is a new sexual wellness brand.