Back after a 6-year pit stop!! I usually go by Ali, but any name on my display/user name is cool too. I've spent years lurking in the fanfic shadows, but now I'm finally surfacing. Formerly infinitewatersourc, now officially anna-logs.
(Disclaimer: Yes, I still read self-insert fanfic... Mind your business lol)
What you'll find here:
F1: I'm a huge Max Verstappen fan. If I'm not talking about the grid, I'm thinking about it!
Britpop & Beyond: A lot of Britpop (Blur, Pulp, Oasis, Elastica) and the legends (Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Stone Roses).
The Mood: Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and a healthy dose of Lana Del Rey
The Archive: Where my interests and deep dive essays live.
Aesthetic: Mod fashion, 50s-70s vintage and retro ♪ ♫
I have a Neocities site where I actually host my essays and coding experiments: https://the-grid-girl.neocities.org/
Follow for the racing, stay for the 90s guitar bands and random facts.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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I swear the hip dips thing being a "response" to women apparently humiliating men for being short is just an excuse to spew out more misogyny lmfao when someone's biggest problem is not being perceived as attractive to a specific demographic... 💀 The whole short man hate rubbish is definitely an online thing and these men need to go outside and observe more. Social media is an echo chamber and if you spend enough time in a specific corner of the internet, you will start to fully believe that the minority is actually the majority.
One of the most annoying things I've seen on the internet is when someone warns or questions parents about posting their kids online, especially topless/in bikinis/borderline naked, and some dumbass goes "why are you sexualizing the kid???" And there's idiots in the comments backing them up going "this is predatory!! Check their hard drive" ?? "Why are you thinking about a kid that way you creep!!! 😡😡" What are we doing bruh. It's even worse when the parent covers the child's face with an emoji but still leaves the child topless?? What's the point and why are we defending this
The blue button/red button debate wouldn't exist if the prompt were worded more clearly. when it was presented to me, it looked like this: "50% of people must press the blue button to live, while 100% must press the red button to live, which one are you pressing?" it's much easier to get 50% of the population to agree on something than 100% of it, so the obvious answer is blue. so... why is everyone now saying by pressing red, you get automatic safety, even if 100% of the population don't press it ??? 😭 include that in the og prompt, and everyone would choose red without debate.
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I actually really like Pinky Up and I think it's KATSEYE'S best song... Well, up until the choruses lol. I love the rave beat and the intensity of the chorus, but I hate the « pinky up » hook (╥﹏╥).
Yoonchae's 10 second verse was the best part of the song - like I was genuinely vibing and about to ascend. I just wish the whole song followed the melody of the verses instead. If it was kept like this, it would have been the song of the summer. It felt like an underground club anthem for approximately 30 seconds until the TikTok-ification kicked in. At least it's better than Gnarly and Internet Girl.
We'll just pretend the music video doesn't exist because why did we have a whole 30 second ad break lmao 💀. The sponsorship had more character development than the chorus.
I will say that the song was amazing for Coachella and it definitely did its job as a song meant for large party crowds. However, erase that damn chorus and outro omfg.
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yeah so because people are cowards who don't want to confront their own words im just gonna make my own post:
max is not just whining about the regs and he is not holding the sport hostage by saying he may not want to race under them much longer. put aside the fact that these regs suck for the purposes of pure racing. we have had a majority unified grid against these regs which has just been nailed home by the fact that the ollie bearman could've been KILLED because of them.
it's a point you've already heard, but it's true. max has been preaching against these regs before he ever step foot in the car, but don't just take his word for it!! take 2x wdc fernando alonso. take reigning wdc lando norris. nearly every driver, from proven race winners to rookies and including 7x wdc lewis, has complained about losing power in places where they shouldn't. and again. a 50g crash just because ollie had to take emergency evasive action against franco with a low battery. this goes beyond whether or not the racing is good under the regs. it's a genuine safety concern!!
max should not have to lay down and die about these regs when they have proven to be dangerous. if a 4x wdc with more racing knowledge in his little finger than you've got in your whole body is saying that there is something wrong with these changes, how about you sit your ass down and listen?
I can't believe so many people are getting worked up over the Japan press conference situation with Giles Richards and Max. The presscon was hosted by Red Bull and Max and held in their own hospitality. Max and the team are within their jurisdiction to choose which interviewers to invite. Dark day for journalism democracy my ass 😭 It was petty but fully within his rights.
What caught my eye, however, was the choice of words used in Richards' article about the incident. One of his colleagues calling Max's behaviour "classless" is very interesting coming from British reporters who admit their jobs are a privileged career. "‘Classless,’ noted one with arch disdain over [Verstappen’s] behaviour."
Max is not working class by any means and was nowhere close to it even in childhood, but specifically calling his behaviour and personality - blunt, no-fluff, take no bullshit, occasionally abrasive - classless, when that kind of personality is commonly & negatively associated with hooligans, "commoners," and the uncouth is very interesting lol. Calling a multi-millionaire classless because his behaviour doesn't fit with the high society and gentlemanly nature of the sport... hmm.
Basically, they are implying Max is acting "low-class" because he kicked him, a reporter with a privileged job, out of a press conference hosted by Red Bull. Son 😭 Classist dog-whistle.
Saw your post on privacy/fishbowl and I have to say you make a really good point, and I can’t speak for other countries but I believe even with the whole “everyone knows Monaco is where f1 drivers live” thing I’m pretty sure they have stricter rules about paps etc than the UK. If you’re even a minor celeb in the uk and they think they can get clicks the tabloids will have their long lens photographers following you around (a friend of mines parents live in a fairly wealthy area in London and the amount of paps that just hang around their area on a daily basis is insane). So even with fans/the weird stalkery TikTok accounts that take pics and vids of them in Monaco, it’s probably still better privacy wise than living in the UK
But yeah, just own it and admit you move to Monaco for the financial benefits? Like we really don’t care guys
Yeah using the UK as an example of a place of privacy was not a good call. That's my bad 😭. Tabloid culture in the UK is one of the most invasive in the world and basically the final boss of invasive paparazzi. You're right that the security in Monaco is actually good and it does prevent many incidents that would have happened anywhere else. Monaco is basically a gated community with the most police officers per capita with a zero tolerance for crime. It's one of the safest places in the world. However, Monaco offers elite physical security, but it provides zero social anonymity. Instead of paps hiding in bushes, you have iphones in your face.
My main gripe is the reminiscing. Talking about the old days where they could walk their dog in the daytime or something feels very hollow when there's a very easy solution to this: don't live in Monaco :/ Obviously, moving away isn't going to fix the crazy fan behaviour and harassment (and that's a separate, serious issue altogether) but if these drivers truly valued privacy like they say they do, they would not be living in Monaco. We all know they just want those tax benefits lol.
I think fans demanding privacy for their faves so passionately when their faves are f1 drivers living in f1 land is pretty funny and ironic.
Where in the world would you suggest they live (that they could get residence visas and also easily link up with the international airport system upon which their jobs rely)? Celebrity culture means that the iPhones in faces would occur in most of the EU, the USA and the Middle East, and not all of them can get residence visas in places with more compunctions about taking images of celebrities in non-work mode.
(And that's before you start with the fact that one member of the grid is a Monaco national).
I appreciate the logistical defense, but the solution is actually much simpler than you think. Not everyone on the grid lives in Monaco, which already answers the "where else would they go?" Question and the residency visa problem. Pierre lives in Milan, Esteban lives in Geneva, and Isack splits his time between France and the UK. These Frenchmen likely don't live in Monaco because French tax laws still apply to them there. Yet even outside of Monaco, they're still near the F1 hub, still in Europe, still functioning as F1 drivers, and noticeably not getting filmed every time they leave their house.
So clearly it's possible to not live in Monaco and still do your job. Monaco is just the most convenient + tax friendly option, not the only viable one. That's the trade-off. Most drivers choose convenience and money over anonymity.
The exception is Charles. Yes, he's a Monegasque national. However, he is the only one with a birthright excuse. Everyone else - Max, Lando, George, Lewis - applied for a residency permit. They filled out the paperwork and showed their bank statements specifically because Monaco is a 0% income tax jurisdiction. Charles, as a national citizen, stays because it's his home (valid!) and because of the tax benefits (also valid!), but he and the rest of the drivers aren't forcibely tied to the country. All but one of them aren't tied to Monaco out of citizenship or necessity. Living there is a financial and lifestyle choice, which means the privacy trade-off is part of that decision. For Charles, iPhones in his face is a violation of his privacy in his own homeland, while for other drivers, it's a business trade.
As for the international airports problem, we can look at the non Monaco based drivers again. These drivers don't live in Monaco yet still manage to arrive at races because they don't fly commercial. They either own a private jet or charter one. F1 drivers complain a lot, but I doubt I've heard anyone complain that there aren't any airports/runways nearby!
If we want to look at the extreme level of F1 driver privacy, Sebastian Vettel is the best example. He moved to a farmhouse in Switzerland and has neighbours who are farmers, not F1 fans. He even requested that the local Swiss authorities in the Canton of Thurgau delete his online land registry lol. However, this is the extreme level (which, as you can see, is doable). The non-Monaco-based drivers on the current grid are the realistic route others can take if they don't want to go full Vettel.
Before I end this off, I just want to clarify that the fans are 100% at fault for all the harassment these drivers face. None of this excuses doorbell ringing, stalking, or shoving cameras into people's faces. Moving out of Monaco isn't going to magically fix recognition, and it's delusional to think fame can be undone. But if you genuinely want less day-to-day intrusion, Monaco is objectively one of the worst places to live as an F1 driver. Living there is a financial and lifestyle choice, and the privacy trade-off unfortunately comes with it.
I'm actually in the middle of writing a more detailed report about my thoughts. (the business cost of the 0% tax, horizontal privacy, the 1963 Treaty, etc). I really appreciate the points you brought up. It's been a great brainstorming session for the final piece :P
I've seen quite a few "amateur pap" pictures of Gasly and Ocon since 2022 (and none from before then), which suggests neither Italy nor Switzerland solves the issue you describe any more. It might not be every time either leaves their house, but it's visibly often enough to cause them problems. Gasly already had to leave Dubai (a place he'd previously lived) partly for this reason.
Even Magnussen, who lived in Denmark, had an informal "agreement" with local fans for years similar to the one Leclerc had to request via social media, and never moved from his hometown (except when racing in the USA), sometimes hit this problem in the latter years of his career. (Switzerland was a great option for privacy pre-COVID, as you rightly identify Sebastian Vettel finding out. Others who did this included Fernando Alonso and the Schumachers).
If one's home address leaks in Switzerland, the police simply have too much country to cover in order to enforce a request to provide privacy. (Deleting an entry from the land register, as Vettel did, is no longer permitted in Switzerland for new requests because of a law requiring all owners to be transparent so that disputes can be resolved in court). Switzerland is also moving towards less data protection in general, including a current attempt to require all plain-text exchanges to be made available to police on demand.
Courts there will punish lawbreakers, but in the meantime, it's one more stressor the driver doesn't need. The instant compliance Leclerc got when he asked people not to go to his door would not have happened, without certainty of timely enforcement. (Leclerc has, of course, opted for less privacy than he is legally entitled to have, because he believes in a particular conception of the driver-fan contract that is less privacy-orientated and is compatible with him living in his home country in the context of poor behaviour from some fans. Absolutely 100% the irresponsible fans' fault, but the choices you allude to drivers having on this matter have some relevance to chosen solutions).
Sadly, people's behaviour has deteriorated in general since 2022. The old pro-privacy haunts now only work for people below a certain level of fame or those who have reasonable assurance of their locations reamining obscure in the face of plane-trackers and the like. The main thing where one lives controls are obscurity, and whether the authorities can/will do anything about it. Monaco has a good track record on the latter even if it can no longer provide the former (and pre-COVID). Switzerland no longer has the resources to do the latter, and obscurity is increasingly not a protection for people as famous as the top half-to-three-quarters of the F1 grid. (Bear in mind that pre-COVID, Monaco was obscure enough to have very little F1-related "amateur paparazzi" action outside of May.
So for the more popular drivers (Hadjar not yet included, but the likes of Colapinto are), it really isn't possible to live in the EU or Dubai without the issue of "amateur paparazzi" appearing often enough to cause problems, as Gasly and Ocon have already demonstrated. We've already discussed why the UK doesn't work as a solution. The urban centres of the USA (where F1 drivers often used to have second homes for obscurity) are no longer valid choices. We can infer this because Leclerc has property there - which he rents out because his name helps with letting out the place; not something compatible with avoiding "amateur paparazzi" types in such places. Rural parts of the USA remain an option for privacy, if well-chosen, but are too far from the international plane network for the job to be feasible.
Tax is definitely the primary reason most F1 drivers pick Monaco specifically. However, there's a particular level of fame where responses to privacy also become relevant to whether one can stay home in the first place. And this is why most of the non-rookies live in a country the size of a large town with greater ability to enforce physical privacy than Switzerland currently does.
This is a really thoughtful reply. Thanks for taking the time to write it :). But I think we’re starting to drift into privacy theory, which is interesting, but it’s not really the core of what I was trying to say.
I agree with you on the big picture that nowhere is truly private anymore for the drivers at a certain level of fame, especially post-2022. Obscurity as a strategy pretty much died with plane trackers, amateur pap culture, and how normalized filming strangers in public has become. So yeah, Switzerland/Italy/France/etc. Aren’t the privacy cheat codes they used to be, and Monaco’s enforcement capacity is a real factor for why people stay there once already famous.
However, I think we’re talking about two different things: Physical security vs social anonymity. Monaco is a fortress with the best surveillance and police response, which is great for security. But the thing is, a place can be secure while having zero anonymity. My point is more about the geography of exposure. Monaco is the most exposure-heavy base an F1 driver can pick. It’s tiny, it’s a motorsport tourist hub, and it’s culturally understood as F1 land. Living there is knowingly choosing maximum visibility in daily life in exchange for other benefits (tax, security, convenience). It’s a valid trade-off, but it’s still a trade-off. These drivers know the terms and conditions.
I simply observed the irony of the lifestyle choice. When drivers or fans reminisce about the old days of being able to walk around normally, I find that a bit ironic when they’re currently living in the most F1-saturated place in the world. If your goal is to reduce the frequency and intensity of being filmed in daily life, then living literally anywhere that isn’t Monaco or a tourist hub will do that. Not perfectly, but at least noticeably.
Drivers like Pierre and Esteban get spotted because they live in Milan and Geneva. Those are major global hubs. If you choose to live in a tourist centre, you are choosing visibility. The fact that they don’t choose to live in a gated villa in the countryside (like other multimillionaires) means that they are okay with some visibility as long as they get to live the lifestyle they have.
I also think some of the legal traps you mentioned are a bit of a stretch in 2026. For example, the Swiss LETA (transparency register) is explicitly non-public; it’s for the police and tax authorities to catch money launderers, not for fans to find houses. Similarly, the VÜPF surveillance reforms specifically exclude end-to-end encrypted messages like Signal or WhatsApp. While these reforms are concerning, there's a difference between state surveillance and social exposure. The police having a record of your deed for a court case doesn’t help an amateur pap find your villa in the woods, unless they’re an insane stalker or doxxer (which is extreme and beyond iphones all around you on the street).
Regarding the point about Pierre leaving Dubai, it’s actually a bit of a misconception that he lived there or fled due to privacy. He was only there for two months because he got stuck in a stopover during the 2020 lockdown. He’s actually been based in Milan since 2017-2019, primarily because he’s passionate about the fashion scene there + it's an F1 city due to its proximity to the Italian GP (which he’s discussed in interviews) and because, as a French citizen, the 1963 treaty means he doesn’t get the Monaco tax benefits anyway. If he were truly struggling with recognition to the point of fleeing countries, moving to a global fashion capital like Milan, where street photography is part of the city’s DNA, would be an odd choice.
The drivers living outside of Monaco prove that Monaco is not the only option. They’re able to fly to races and do their jobs just fine. With private aviation, they don’t need a major international airport hub. They just need a private hangar or a fixed-base operator, which exists in rural areas all over Europe and the UK. The presence of non-Monaco-based drivers in GPs confirms this.
Ultimately, I’m just pointing out the trade-off. Monaco is a choice made for tax, security, and luxury. I’m not saying “just move and all your problems will disappear” (though it may have been unintentionally implied lol). I’m saying that it’s a bit ironic and tone-deaf to choose the world’s biggest F1 fishbowl and then wonder why you’re being watched through the glass. That doesn’t make harassment okay, and fans are still 100% responsible for bad behaviour, but it does mean the trade-off was known going in. That’s all I was really getting at.
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Saw your post on privacy/fishbowl and I have to say you make a really good point, and I can’t speak for other countries but I believe even with the whole “everyone knows Monaco is where f1 drivers live” thing I’m pretty sure they have stricter rules about paps etc than the UK. If you’re even a minor celeb in the uk and they think they can get clicks the tabloids will have their long lens photographers following you around (a friend of mines parents live in a fairly wealthy area in London and the amount of paps that just hang around their area on a daily basis is insane). So even with fans/the weird stalkery TikTok accounts that take pics and vids of them in Monaco, it’s probably still better privacy wise than living in the UK
But yeah, just own it and admit you move to Monaco for the financial benefits? Like we really don’t care guys
Yeah using the UK as an example of a place of privacy was not a good call. That's my bad 😭. Tabloid culture in the UK is one of the most invasive in the world and basically the final boss of invasive paparazzi. You're right that the security in Monaco is actually good and it does prevent many incidents that would have happened anywhere else. Monaco is basically a gated community with the most police officers per capita with a zero tolerance for crime. It's one of the safest places in the world. However, Monaco offers elite physical security, but it provides zero social anonymity. Instead of paps hiding in bushes, you have iphones in your face.
My main gripe is the reminiscing. Talking about the old days where they could walk their dog in the daytime or something feels very hollow when there's a very easy solution to this: don't live in Monaco :/ Obviously, moving away isn't going to fix the crazy fan behaviour and harassment (and that's a separate, serious issue altogether) but if these drivers truly valued privacy like they say they do, they would not be living in Monaco. We all know they just want those tax benefits lol.
I think fans demanding privacy for their faves so passionately when their faves are f1 drivers living in f1 land is pretty funny and ironic.
Where in the world would you suggest they live (that they could get residence visas and also easily link up with the international airport system upon which their jobs rely)? Celebrity culture means that the iPhones in faces would occur in most of the EU, the USA and the Middle East, and not all of them can get residence visas in places with more compunctions about taking images of celebrities in non-work mode.
(And that's before you start with the fact that one member of the grid is a Monaco national).
I appreciate the logistical defense, but the solution is actually much simpler than you think. Not everyone on the grid lives in Monaco, which already answers the "where else would they go?" Question and the residency visa problem. Pierre lives in Milan, Esteban lives in Geneva, and Isack splits his time between France and the UK. These Frenchmen likely don't live in Monaco because French tax laws still apply to them there. Yet even outside of Monaco, they're still near the F1 hub, still in Europe, still functioning as F1 drivers, and noticeably not getting filmed every time they leave their house.
So clearly it's possible to not live in Monaco and still do your job. Monaco is just the most convenient + tax friendly option, not the only viable one. That's the trade-off. Most drivers choose convenience and money over anonymity.
The exception is Charles. Yes, he's a Monegasque national. However, he is the only one with a birthright excuse. Everyone else - Max, Lando, George, Lewis - applied for a residency permit. They filled out the paperwork and showed their bank statements specifically because Monaco is a 0% income tax jurisdiction. Charles, as a national citizen, stays because it's his home (valid!) and because of the tax benefits (also valid!), but he and the rest of the drivers aren't forcibely tied to the country. All but one of them aren't tied to Monaco out of citizenship or necessity. Living there is a financial and lifestyle choice, which means the privacy trade-off is part of that decision. For Charles, iPhones in his face is a violation of his privacy in his own homeland, while for other drivers, it's a business trade.
As for the international airports problem, we can look at the non Monaco based drivers again. These drivers don't live in Monaco yet still manage to arrive at races because they don't fly commercial. They either own a private jet or charter one. F1 drivers complain a lot, but I doubt I've heard anyone complain that there aren't any airports/runways nearby!
If we want to look at the extreme level of F1 driver privacy, Sebastian Vettel is the best example. He moved to a farmhouse in Switzerland and has neighbours who are farmers, not F1 fans. He even requested that the local Swiss authorities in the Canton of Thurgau delete his online land registry lol. However, this is the extreme level (which, as you can see, is doable). The non-Monaco-based drivers on the current grid are the realistic route others can take if they don't want to go full Vettel.
Before I end this off, I just want to clarify that the fans are 100% at fault for all the harassment these drivers face. None of this excuses doorbell ringing, stalking, or shoving cameras into people's faces. Moving out of Monaco isn't going to magically fix recognition, and it's delusional to think fame can be undone. But if you genuinely want less day-to-day intrusion, Monaco is objectively one of the worst places to live as an F1 driver. Living there is a financial and lifestyle choice, and the privacy trade-off unfortunately comes with it.
I'm actually in the middle of writing a more detailed report about my thoughts. (the business cost of the 0% tax, horizontal privacy, the 1963 Treaty, etc). I really appreciate the points you brought up. It's been a great brainstorming session for the final piece :P
