The final way is within you.

We need to talk about the deeply disturbing intersection of the digital creator economy, global capitalism, and systemic racism.

Over the last few years, investigative journalists (like the team behind the BBC Africa Eye documentary "Racism for Sale") exposed a multi-million-dollar industry online centered around "blessing videos." In these videos, content creators in various African nations paid local children—often pennies or small snacks—to hold up signs and chant phrases in Mandarin for clients in China. In the most horrific cases, children were unknowingly instructed to chant racist slurs against themselves for shock-value entertainment and profit.

https://youtu.be/H-V7cXGhIq0?si=chpQLNahharFDhfu

A video about How some Chinese bloggers in Africa are abusing and exploiting young children, some scenes are distressing, watch at your own risk

While international outrage led to legal convictions and platform crackdowns on those specific videos, the underlying systemic issue hasn't disappeared—it has just shifted forms.

Recently, you might have seen a viral trend involving hyper-deformable, "ugly-cute" silicone stress toys. These toys are frequently designed with deeply exaggerated features and dark skin, marketed as ASMR objects meant to be smashed, stretched, and thrown against walls for stress relief.

Why This Matters

It is easy for people to look at a squishy toy or a "funny" video in isolation and claim "it’s not that deep." But nothing exists in a vacuum.

The Return of the Caricature: Whether intentional or not, designing a dark-skinned doll with grotesque, exaggerated features and marketing it as an object to be violently abused for stress relief taps directly into historical tropes of racial caricatures and casual dehumanization.

The Algorithmic Buffer: The internet economy rewards shock value, detachment, and high engagement metrics. In a highly homogenous environment with little direct contact or historical education regarding global racial dynamics, human empathy gets completely bypassed. The subject becomes an object; the object becomes content; the content becomes profit.

Systemic Apathy: This is what happens when supply chains and digital algorithms operate without ethical boundaries. A factory manufactures it for profit, an influencer abuses it for views, and a consumer buys it for entertainment—all of them completely insulated from the real-world weight of what they are perpetuating.

The Takeaway

It is completely valid to feel exhausted and cynical watching these trends cycle through our feeds. It serves as a stark reminder of how easily systems can strip away human dignity for the sake of monetization.

Me? I had some really spectacular bruises and a lil friction burn on my nose from where Mr. Airbag and Ms. Glasses had a disagreement. That's it. That's it.

I was driving a little tiny coupe and went more or less head-on with a pickup truck. The entire engine and hood of my car was twisted rubble that was not connected to the rest of the car afterward. I sat down on the verge, about twenty or thirty feet from the accident, while I waited for the cops and EMTs to work their way through the traffic backup to get to us, and found that I was sitting beside one of the headlights of my car. The whole entire headlight, bulb and reflector and cover and frame and all.

All I had were bruises and that little friction burn. That's it.

Crumple zones save lives. So do seatbelts and airbags; half the bruising was the exact shape of my seatbelt in livid crimson and black on my torso. It was and remains the most insanely intense bruising I have ever experienced in my life. BUT IT WAS JUST BRUISING!! Unpleasant, sure, but eminently survivable and didn't even require much treatment beyond not wearing a bra for a few days. But all the force that created that spectacular bruising was force that wasn't flinging me through the windshield or impaling me on the steering column. My car crumpled and crushed and dissolved but it held me safe and secure and protected.

The document, which outlines Microsoft’s plan to embed a more mainstream and accessible version of OpenClaw AI agents in its Microsoft 365 software suite, describes “three phases” to its approach. The first: “Make people addicted.”

The document, which outlines Microsoft’s plan to embed a more mainstream and accessible version of OpenClaw AI agents in its Microsoft 365 software suite, describes “three phases” to its approach. The first: “Make people addicted.”

Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French author of graphic novel 'Persepolis', dies aged 56 - https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/marjane-satrapi-iranian-french-author-graphic-novel-persepolis-dies-aged-56-2026-06-04/

and the thing that tickles at my brain is, it'd be interesting as a worldbuilding premise to keep the huge leaps in capabilities done by individual actors but get rid of the lack of replicability. start with a world like ours and say, ok, we're on the cusp of the mad science revolution, people are starting to come up with all sorts of previously-impossible technology, but once invented it's out there. every military has to adapt their doctrine to super soldier serum and laser guns. there's a cure for cancer and the protocol has to account for the one in a twenty chance it'll turn you into a werewolf. your neighbour moves in and she's made of metal and you're not sure if it's a full-body prosthetic or if in the last month when you stopped keeping up with the robotics news they made robots who are people. and it's definitely rude to ask. teleportation halfway across the planet is not cheap but like neither are planes and it does have a lower carbon footprint.

The above sort of conundrum is one reason I've always had such an affinity for X-Men. It's innately more interesting to me when superheros have to deal with a world where powers are unpredictable and disruptive, and multiple interests need to deploy force and conspiracy to shape change towards their ends, because that's just factually closer to how super impactful innovations work IRL -- they ARE replicable, people will replicate them more or less unpredictably if there aren't boots on the ground to stop them.