The Blackbird Spyplane newsletter recently made a valuable contribution to the pantheon of essays about how the internet has transformed the physical world: a hopeful manifesto in praise of the “Un-Grammable Hang Zone,” the definition of which will be obvious if you’ve spent enough time in the Instagram-optimized settings that have proliferated in cities during the past decade—places that BBSP describes as a “high-efficiency, low-humanity kind of eatery where you point yr phone at a QR code and do contactless payment before eating a room-temp grain bowl under a pink neon sign that says ‘Living My Best Life’ in cursive.” Beyond their aesthetic qualities, these environments actually make people behave differently; people enter them “dazed and automaton-like” and take bleak selfies.
“Milwaukee lookin ass” places usually have deceptively good food (and I’m totally counting cheese curds here).
Also this Midwest Modern Twitter account is the rabbit hole I didn’t know I needed!
Yes 100% agree - it's always a good sign!