amanda hess

SECOND LIFE 51 mechanisms for spreading the news. They colluded with a doctor, sealed the sex report in an envelope, and arranged for the message to be delivered to a baker, a party outfitter, or a novelty arms dealer. At a party held to announce the findings, a knife sliced through a layer of frosting to reveal the fleshy gender inside. A pregnant woman beat a piñata until its gender spilled out. A father-to-be pulled the trigger and rained gender across the range.

"At a party held to announce the findings, a knife sliced through a layer of frosting to reveal the fleshy gender inside. A pregnant woman beat a piñata until its gender spilled out. A father-to-be pulled the trigger and rained gender across the range."

Amanda Hess' "Second Life" is so good.

this is tonight!

Exclusive: USAID analysis found no evidence of massive Hamas theft of Gaza aid The internal U.S. government analysis challenges the main rationale that Israel and the U.S. give for backing a new armed private aid operation.

Exclusive: USAID analysis found no evidence of massive Hamas theft of Gaza aid | Reuters

Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die July 21, 2025 AFP has been working with 1 writer, 3 photographers and 6 videographers, all freelance, in the Gaza Strip since its staff journalists left in 2024. Along with a few others, they are now the only ones left to report what is happening in the Gaza Strip. The international press has been banned from entering the territory for nearly two years. We refuse to watch them die. One of them, Bashar, has been working with AFP since 2010, first as a fixer, then freelance photographer, and since 2024, as lead photographer. On July 19th he managed to post a message on Facebook: “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.” Bashar, 30, works & lives in the same conditions as all Gazans, moving from one refugee camp to another under Israeli bombings. For > a year he’s lived in utter destitution, working at extreme risk to his life. Hygiene is a major issue for him, with recurring bouts of severe intestinal illness. Since Feb, Bashar’s been living in the ruins of his home in Gaza City with his mother, 4 brothers & sisters and the family of one of his brothers. Their house is devoid of any furnishings, except a few cushions. On Sunday morning, he reported that one of his brothers had “fallen, due to hunger.” Even though these journalists receive a monthly salary from AFP, it’s no longer enough to buy food, or they have to pay completely exorbitant prices. The banking system has collapsed, and those who exchange money via online bank accounts charge a commission of up to 40%. AFP no longer has the ability to provide them with a vehicle and there is not enough fuel to allow these journalists to travel for their reporting. Driving a car means becoming a target for Israeli airstrikes. AFP reporters therefore travel on foot or by donkey cart. (alt txt continued in next post)

A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

"Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die"

Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:

How tech is transforming parenthood (for better or worse) — Apple News In Conversation Apps, data, and influencers are changing what it means to become a parent.

How tech is transforming parenthood with @amandahess.bsky.social on Apple News in Conversation:
apple.news/AJqDYupu5SZS...

How Trump Killed Cancer Research Attempting to eliminate funding for certain kinds of “woke” studies, the Trump administration erased hundreds of millions of dollars being used for cancer research.

Attempting to eliminate funding for certain kinds of “woke” studies, the Trump administration erased hundreds of millions of dollars being used for cancer research. www.wired.com/story/how-tr...

Inside the Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies Investors say genetic prediction services for embryos, used by Elon Musk and others, are a trust fund for future children. Many scientists are skeptical.

dr. frankenstein dies at the end fyi www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

@amandahess.bsky.social joins @wnyc.org's On The Media to talk about her new book, SECOND LIFE, and the surreal collisions between parenthood and technology.

Listen now: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

come talk about true life with us!

thank you!

It was a huge pleasure to interview @amandahess.bsky.social ‪ for @onthemedia.bsky.social about her book, Second Life. Her book is such a thoughtful and incisive look at how technology has infused so many parts of pregnancy and parenthood today. Take a listen!
www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

A pregnant woman with an inset image from a pregnancy app

⭐ NEW EP ⭐ Loved talking to the wonderful @amandahess.bsky.social abt her unexpected, eerie bond w/her fertility app during pregnancy 🎧 LISTEN: wp.me/p4bvGZ-3Hg

I Want to Burn This Place Down A debut essay collection by the inimitable cultural critic Maris Kreizman—an introspective, searing account of the life experiences that have pushed this fo...

Hello. After months and months of self-consciously self-promoting, the day has finally come. I WANT TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN is available wherever books are sold. www.harpercollins.com/products/i-w...

Really enjoyed Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by @amandahess.bsky.social.

The final chapter was like a mini-millennial-mom version of Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger.

thank you so much! i want my Razr back 😭

Since the early 2010s, social media has been identified with protesters. In the early days, social media was an effective tool for activists to organize and communicate with one another and directly with the public, providing counternarratives to the ones laid out in popular coverage.

A pro Andrew Cuomo, anti Zohran Mamdani mailer

Text listing the funders behind the mailer

NYC’s campaign finance laws make it so you can get this mailer … and it’s gotta say who paid for it.

!!! thank you for waiting 🙏

people need to stop writing good books for a few months!
my current rotation, all May pubs:
Empire of AI @karenhao.bsky.social
No Cop City, No Cop World @micahh.bsky.social @kamaufranklin.bsky.social
Second Life @amandahess.bsky.social
The AI Con @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social

yes! you can get an ebook on Kindle or bookshop.org

Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age Having a Child in the Digital Age

Tech companies are powerfully influencing our relationships with our kids, starting before they’re even born. I wrote a book about the surveillance, commodification and eugenic thinking embedded in everything from period trackers to baby monitors, and you can buy it now bookshop.org/p/books/seco...

Hell of a photo

Private Equity Doesn’t Actually Want to Kill the American Dream Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company fails to deliver on its thesis that the business model only succeeds at the expense of portfolio companies.

Oh hell yes, they got a longtime private equity guy to review my book! He hated it! Do you want to be cool and preorder BAD COMPANY, or do you want to be like GARY??

Diabolus Ex Machina This Is Not An Essay

I... oh my god.
amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

🕷️ I love it!

“I had been the pregnant woman fetishizing the normal test result. Now that I was the mother of a child with a rare condition, I found an enemy in my past self”. Just finished Second Life by @amandahess.bsky.social. It is brilliant.

thank you 🙏

It’s One of the Most Powerful Conspiracy Theories in the World. There’s a Reason So Many People Believe It. The long, destructive path of “Pallywood.”

great, disturbing ,Aymann Ismail story about the proliferation of "Pallywood," the accusation that most images of the devastation in the West Bank and Gaza are manufactured by crisis actors.

childcare responsibility. When I searched back through the New York Times article, it didn't even say anything about wreaths. Obviously, I had not been breezily dismissive about having kids. I had been in denial and posting through it on the internet. My job so consumed my identity and my time that I couldn't imagine taking care of another person. Instead, I rhapsodized about buying stuff. Years before I had Alma, before I got inducted into the motherhood internet, I had already absorbed the idea that caring for them was little more than a craft project, an opportunity for a dull woman to express herself. I had picked a side in the mommy wars, and I wasn't even a mom. Now I understood how difficult it was to take care of children all of the time, or even some of the time, like I did. When I dropped Alma off at daycare, the damage and hypocrisy of my little article revealed itself. The only reason that I could pay other women to care for him while I worked was because my work was valued more than theirs. My salary was higher than the cost of the care, even as it was obvious to me that the true value of the caregiver's work exceeded my own. If I had to choose which was more important, publishing an article or feeding children, I would choose the children every time. Especially if the article was of the quality of "The New Opt-Out Revolution: Not Having Kids." In her essay on housework, Konikow sketched out a program where the work of parents-mothers, in her letter—would be integrated with the means of production, with nurseries installed on factory floors and cooperative lunchrooms organized to relieve the mother of her "kitchen drudgery" and draw families into shared meals. bell hooks envisioned collectivized childcare that recruited people of all genders and parental statuses to raise the community's kids, and Davis imagined "radically transforming the nature of housework," where it "need no longer be considered necessarily and unalterably private in character,"

reading even a thought of collectivized childcare is like a sigh of relief! last night i was in a rare space where there was collective childcare for a couple hours. it's hard to adjust to but it's not hard to see how good it is for parents. more more more

cover of Second Life by Amanda Hess, subtitled Having A Child In The Digital Age, in green text on a blue cover in a soft-edged serif font. The subtitle is written within an iconized safety pin and computer search bar

Second Life from @amandahess.bsky.social is a incredible, well-reported book on parenting, disability, surveillance, how parents drive each other crazy and are egged on by tech companies looking for a niche